


Genesis (Clash of the Void)

by saintnothing (sxxaint)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Angst, Coming of Age, Corruption, Death Eater Raises Harry Potter, Dissociation, Eventual Romance, Flawed OC, Good Parenting – Freeform, Horcrux Tom Riddle – Freeform, Horcrux-Induced Insanity, Horcruxes, Identity, Light!Harry – Freeform, M/M, Major Original Character(s), Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Mild Gore, Mutism, Mystery, Reincarnation, Romance, Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem, Sirius Black has a son, Tom Riddle is His Own Warning, Torture, Underage/Underage, Young Tom Riddle, but not the kind you're thinking of, dark!fic, intelligent oc
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:21:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 48,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26738776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sxxaint/pseuds/saintnothing
Summary: When Lukas Black was seven, or maybe eight, he opened his eyes to a back alley and found he couldn't remember anything beside his own name. Not even how to speak.Jack used to be a Malfoy, but now he's a down-and-out fugitive with a skull and serpent branded on his forearm, but finding his old friend's son on the streets gives him the motivation to drag himself off rock-bottom.Lukas might be weird and he might be mute, but up until he went to Hogwarts, at least he was mostly sane. Meeting a boy called Tom who haunts Ravenclaw's Diadem changes that. While Lukas's fascination with the charming, cruel Tom draws him into isolation, he's plagued by strange visions and lost time. Something locked in these memories threatens to drown him, and Lukas must find out how to control them before they drive him insane.
Relationships: OMC/OMC, Original Male Character(s)/Original Male Character(s), Tom Riddle & Original Male Character(s), Tom Riddle/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 24





	1. Lost Memories & New Beginnings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for checking out Clash of the Void! This is my epic HP fic that I've been writing and dreaming about forever. It's very long and it contains and centres around a lot of Original Characters. I've seriously been writing these guys so long they all just blend into the world for me, so I hope their settled places and pasts will reflect that.
> 
> These books are organised in a year-by-year basis, where the HP plot occurs side-by-side with mine _as per canon_ except in the cases when Lukas & Co. throw a wrench in and changes all those carefully laid plans.
> 
> Lukas is a bit too smart for his own good, but it's not going to help the kind of trouble he gets into. Genius!Kid vibe is for plot reasons, and all will be explained. I'm following the kind of amnesia where you _don't _lose all your executive functions.__
> 
> (Both TR & OC are pre-teens initially, so this is _eventual_ TR/OC)
> 
> •─────⋅☾ ⋅ ☽⋅─────•
> 
>  **Content Warnings:** References to past childhood abuse, non-graphic r*pe, violence, self-harm, dissociative mental states, alcohol/drug abuse. This applies to this arc. I won't restate these at the beginning of chapters unless it's a warning that I initially missed so make sure you don't read if you're not comfortable.
> 
> If you have any thoughts at all on my fic, please leave a review. I'll reply to each and every one of them. I'm always looking to improve my writing or fangirl about my own characters!
> 
> Also available on [FFN](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13720938/1/Genesis-Clash-of-the-Void) | [Wattpad](https://www.wattpad.com/story/244186071-%F0%9D%90%86%F0%9D%90%9E%F0%9D%90%A7%F0%9D%90%9E%F0%9D%90%AC%F0%9D%90%A2%F0%9D%90%AC-lukas-black)

_**•─────⋅☾ ⋅** **Clash of the Void {Genesis}** **⋅ ☽⋅─────•**_

_**** _

⋅

⋅

_1 9 8 4_

•─────⋅☾ ⋅ ☽⋅─────•

Lukas could never tell if he knew a lot or nothing at all.

Smarts – sure, he had those. If he was in school, he'd sail top of his class or beyond, but biology and literature and history – what did that matter when you lurked at the bottom of the barrel of humanity?

On the streets, every day was a struggle for survival, and at survival, Lukas was one of the best. He knew the streets of Whitechapel better than the shape of his own face. He knew how to pick a lock and make it look like you were just sheltering in the doorway, He knew how to slip inside and he knew what was worth taking – food, warm clothing, blankets, money.

He knew the best streets for pickpocketing, and how to knock up against someone just _so,_ so that when he dipped his hand in their pocket, they wouldn't even notice until they went searching that they'd been robbed. He knew where to hide when the pigs caught him stealing, because it happened to even the best every once in a while, and he knew where to hide from everyone else who'd want to hurt him too.

He knew _intimately_ that people wanted to hurt him, and all you could do at his size was hide.

He'd been living on the streets for as long as he could remember, except ... he'd only been on the streets for nine months. _Obviously_ he wasn't nine months old. Perhaps he was seven, maybe eight, and that was by far old enough to remember more than nine months ago. All the useless knowledge rattling around his head proved how much he'd learnt already, but beyond that ... blank – a vividly white purgatory where a childhood should be. So in the end, it seemed as if he really knew nothing at all. All he knew was how to survive.

•─────⋅☾ ⋅ ☽⋅─────•

Lukas’s first memory was a woman’s scream.

The first sharp moment of clarity had been starting up and nearly hitting his head on a brick wall, and then the moment of freefall panic as he stared wildly around the unfamiliar space that penned out his whole world. It was a small gap between a dumpster and grimy brick. The damp floor gave off wafts of piss and rot, and at the time … it hadn’t seemed odd to him at all that he had no idea of how he got there. That was all he knew: that tiny, filthy space behind the dumpster.

After all, he couldn’t remember enough to know better.

The woman screamed again. Right in time with the thud of his heart, he jumped up and edged around the dumpster, peering out into the alley that seemed very much like a macrocosm of the space where he woke up: full of bins overflowing with leaking bags, rain dripping onto the already sodden muck of the floor from criss-crossing railings high above him. All these new sights he took in with goggling eyes and a starstruck mind.

The alley was no more than seven-foot wide, not enough room for more than one man to walk between the larger dumpsters. It was dark, but the harsh glow of neon from the busy street penetrated far enough to illuminate the scene. Lukas had looked right, towards the mouth of the alley first, but the flash of noise and activity sent his virgin gaze flinching away. Left, a man with a shock of white hair pinned a woman against the wall, something jammed against her throat and his hand clamped over her mouth. With a cold fascination closing over his mind, Lukas edged closer.

“Shut your fucking _mouth,_ you bitch,” the man hissed.

Her makeup-caked face resolved out of the darkness. Pretty, and Lukas had touched his own cheek seeking smears in his skin that mimicked the way black and peach streamed down her cheeks in the paths of her tears. Her clothes looked far too small for the chilliness of the night-time air.

The woman whimpered in response to the bite of the man’s words. The whites of her eyes as they darted up and down the alley glistened halcyon blue under the neon lights.

Lukas edged closer still and tucked himself behind a large wheelie bin. He had a perfect view now. The flickering lights from the door – several metres down from the pair – glinted against the knife the man held against the woman’s throat, and flashed blue across the man’s eyes. Lukas didn’t think the knife would have made him run even if he’d seen it straight away – he didn’t feel scared, just curiosity biting on the edge of his tongue – but even if it would have, the man held him rooted.

In that first vivid glimpse, something slapped him. Call it déjà vu, but there was something … intensely familiar about that hard face, about the anger in his eyes, about the way his nose scrunched and wrinkled around an animalistic snarl, even the way he held the now very inconsequential woman against the wall. The static pulse was gone in a second, but Lukas didn’t want to move for the rest of the encounter.

That had been very unremarkable. He’d seen a hundred exchanges like it since. The woman was a whore; she’d stolen the man’s wallet. She’d screamed something about him being a monster before he jerked her handbag from her clutching hands and dug around in it, still pinning her to the wall by her throat. When he came up with a black leather square, he’d shaken it in her face.

“Yeah, I fucking thought so. Go on, fuck off. Tell Warren it’s the last fucking time I’m coming near one of his clubs if this is how his girls act.”

She’d broken her heel running down the alley, sobbing the whole way. The man dug some notes and plastic wrapped powder out of her handbag before throwing it on the floor.

“Really hope I ain’t gonna have to do something about you, kid.” Lukas had jumped when the man’s drawling accent turned to him. His first reaction had been a flash of voyeuristic shame, and then the words had struck him, and he’d shaken his head emphatically.

The man raised his eyebrows then slipped the knife back in his jeans. An oversized black hoodie shielded him against the cold, making a murk of his broad frame in the darkness. Against that outline, his grey eyes were predatory sharp.

“Surprised you didn’t run,” the man said, “or scream. Y’know.” He shrugged, as if Lukas definitely should know.

Lukas opened his mouth and then closed it again. Did he even know how to speak? How to make the right sounds come out of his mouth? Any knowledge of it eluded him, and while some indication lurked, back then he hadn’t known enough to trust it. He’d decided to try when he had privacy, not then, so he’d just shrugged back.

“Don’t talk?” Lukas had shaken his head and the man had shrugged again. “Guess you can’t tell anyone then. Go on, fuck off.”

And Lukas had done just that.

Since then, Lukas had never forgotten a thing. Oh, it was never _all_ at the forefront of his brain, but if he searched his memory, he could never _not_ remember. He had a near perfect map of most of London in his head, and he knew as many encyclopaedias as he could be bothered to read by heart. He didn’t always _understand_ what he remembered, but it was all there, lurking around the dusty corners of his mind.

Such richness cast the white purgatory of _before_ into an even more disturbing void.

So did he know plenty, or did he know nothing? No matter how many times he pondered the question he never got an answer. Except for the one thing he did know, the one thing he’d _always_ known – something that he hadn’t realised he knew until someone had first asked him for it and it near skipped from the tip of his tongue by instinct, something that had been with him since that first memory – his name. His name was Lukas, and he guarded that secret with his life. He’d never told a soul his name, so … why was someone shouting it right now?

Lukas supressed the urge to stop in his tracks and stare around. Instead, he carried on the way he’d been going, like he’d actually been going somewhere rather than just idling through the high streets on the hunt for a target. Probably wouldn’t have lifted anything even if he hadn’t been noticed. It was about eleven o’clock on a weekday, and this street was as quiet as it’d ever be while the shops were open. Streams of people moved steadily; no one got caught up in an inescapable riptide of people. No excuse to bump into anyone and poke his sticky fingers in their pockets.

The shouts came from directly behind him. More than likely, he’d already walked past them. His ears told him that, but now his eyes confirmed. No one ahead watched him, and no one gaped and stared. No one shouted at all. All the glances cast about for the hollering noise went straight behind him. He was as invisible as always.

 _Nearly_ as invisible as always.

The shouts didn’t get any further away, so the shouter must be following him. The store fronts slipped by in a stream of murky glass and Lukas kept on at a steady pace until a gap interrupted them. An alley flashed its mouth to the street as an ugly black notch out of the pristine commercial grin, and Lukas slipped cosy inside.

He’d learnt in his nine months that alleys were a haven for people like him. They were everywhere in the city: cracks barely wide enough for skinny Lukas to squeeze into or big, shadowed places with enough space to drive down, and there were as many hiding places in either of them. Civilians passed hundreds every day and they always ignored them, ignored the kid sleeping in the trash, ignored the man with a knife to some whore’s throat, ignored the drug deal, ignored the silent intimacies that went on just feet from where they stood. Alleys were a paradise.

Now he lingered in the mouth, his strange eyes scanning the street for a figure moving urgently, quicker than the rest, shouting…

“Lukas?!”

There he was. A little boy, no more than four (Lukas didn’t think he was more than ten, but four seemed very young to him). He dodged around the pedestrians, a scampering ball of energy knocking things out of at least two people’s hands despite only just topping their knees. Thick, tangled black hair made a nest above wide, round glasses, and a strange lightning shaped scar scratched across his forehead. His clothes looked at least three sizes too big for him and billowed as he ran.

A thin smile curved Lukas’s lips as the boy dashed past his quarry, passing so close Lukas could have reached out to grab him.

Oh, and the boy had knocked loose someone’s _wallet._ The smile widened to a grin now, one notched by where his front tooth had fallen out the other day, and with a quick crook of his finger while the people on the street were aflutter shouting after the boy, Lukas sent out a trail of his power and _snagged it._

It reeled in and landed in his hand with a satisfying heft, and Lukas sunk back into the darkness. A warmth danced in his chest as he peeked in at the wad of notes. This would keep him fed for weeks! Looked like one good thing came of—

A hand dropped on his shoulder.

Lukas spun around, slithering from the grip, and put his back up against the wall. Not even the sight of his accoster slowed this pounding of his heart. No, it only made it worse. The man who’d grabbed him had his hands raised, and when his eyes met Lukas’s, he dropped them to tangle in his hair. White-blond hair.

It was the man from his first memory.

•─────⋅☾ ⋅ ☽⋅─────•

The birds were singing. The sun shone down on him, tickling golden fingers warming his face, and he could hear the familiar sound of crowds passing on a busy street. Just at the edge of his hearing, a busker played a slow, sweet tune on an acoustic guitar. Might have been fucking lovely to wake up to if it wasn’t for the stone digging into his hip, the ache in his head and in his spine, the hard floor beneath him, and the pervading scent of rot digging into his roiling gut. There was also that glaring problem of being awake _at all_ when all he needed was to sleep until this nailing headache went away.

But the bird song seemed to mock the hammering in his head with each piercing trill, and the sun sliced into his eyeballs no matter how well he covered his eyes, and hey, maybe an alley wasn’t the best place to sleep off his hangover anyway. Fucking freezing too. Jack heaved himself to his feet, groaning as the ground lurched and his head gave an almighty throb. He leant against the wall, hand pressed to his aching back, until the world was steadier and he thought he could take a few steps without throwing up.

That didn’t work out quite as planned. Nothing was spinning too much but Jack only managed two steps before he hurled, just about managing to turn and not get vomit all over himself. But hey, maybe he felt a little better after he’d retched up stomach bile for a few minutes. A fag would really seal the deal, but a quick pat over of his pockets showed that his tin with his tobacco in it along with his wallet and the keys to his flat were all gone.

Not that the latter two were important. He was broke and he’d broken into his flat a hundred times before. The door was flimsy enough that a hard push snapped the hinges. No real reason to ever bother locking it besides some ingrained pretence that he had his shit together enough for stuff like _locked doors_. The tin was the greatest loss all in all, but his lighter was still there so he could probably scrub a cigarette.

Decision made, Jack carried on towards the mouth of the alley. This time he managed about five steps before something else brought him up short. A kid, some street urchin by the looks of those scruffy, threadbare clothes, had stolen into the mouth of the alley. He stayed there, shoulder against the wall watching the street. There was some kind of commotion out there, someone shouting and the quieter, muddled sound of people bitching. Jack, ever curious, crept closer. Were the pigs after the kid? Probably not if he just stood there and watched like that. Hardly even bothered to stay in the shadows. And that was a name being shouted…

Jack listened intently as the shout came clearer, repeated over and over again, a question put to the entire street. What was it? Rasp? Nah, too short. A name? He supposed it was that kid’s name. Jasper? Yeah, it sounded like Jasper. Jack sounded it out, listening intently. He was near certain on Jasper right until the kid took a step back and the shouter ran past, a little fucking toddler running up the street, yelling his tiny lungs out.

“Lukas?!”

Cute name. Just like Anthea’s kid. Funny. He had black hair and a real arrogant stance too, just like Jack would imagine Lukas to look around now. A little too tall for six or seven but the kid always had grown quickly.

He was right about to bull past the kid out into the alley – he’d offer the kid some food, but having no money sure wouldn’t get him anywhere with that – when something dark and small came whizzing off the street and slapped into the kid’s hand.

Some avarice lit the glimpse Jack got of the side of the kid’s face, sharp and hungry as he poked through at the wallet in his hand.

Well shit. _Lukas._ Just like Anthea’s kid. And … _magic._ That’d been some fucking spectacular control on wandless and he had the same name as _Anthea’s_ kid. Jack’s heart pounded against his ribs, a lightness swirling through his skull that had nothing to do with the hangover.

Maybe he could write it off but … damn it was just too familiar. Kinda … yeah, he kinda looked like Mik.

 _No fucking way. Absolutely no fucking way._ Lukas wasn’t a common name… No one knew. No one could…

Only one way to find out, really. Worth a try. Jack dropped a hand on the kid’s shoulder. The kid jerked away, putting his back to the wall like a frightened animal, and hissing between his teeth, Jack snatched his hand back.

Kid was too clean to have been on the streets for long; Jack would put it as less than a year. His hair was grimy and matted but really pitch black beneath it. He had it pulled back in a small tail to keep it out of his face. Dirty skin, but his features weren’t common at all. More than _not common._ Downright fucking esoteric when you pinned the source. Then the kid raised his eyes to look at Jack and he _knew._

Pale blue and paler again, almost white. Just like Mik.

“ _Fuck._ ” Jack tangled his fingers in his hair, tugging hard at the roots. “Lukas?”

The kid nodded, slowly with his eyes narrowed to slits.

_Fuck._

After all these fucking years, Lukas was right here, and who was around to see it? Jack was. That was it. Jack who slept off hangovers in alleys and got so fucked up so often that he got robbed at least once a month. Jack who had been the one that no one would leave alone with the baby. The only one. Jack who thought he’d be dead within a year or so, probably of an overdose or a knifing. Jack who should just leave right now and never think about the kid again. Fuck knew the kid would be better off.

But when was he ever sensible?

Lukas stared at him with his wide, strange eyes and … shit! Jack had to stifle his laughter as the recollection struck him. There he was: the weird kid who’d watched him rob some hooker from beside a dumpster. He’d nearly given him a right good scare, but something had stopped him…

“You don’t speak?”

Lukas shook his head slowly. His eyes were so much colder than last time, wary and guarded. Seemed like he’d just been from a poor home before going by his oversized clothes and shoddy haircut, poor but sheltered. He didn’t look a thing like that now.

He wasn’t a born mute – that was for sure. He’d been forming words and incoherent sentences when Jack had last seen him, looking hilariously concentrated on it for a baby, even a bloody genius baby. Maybe it was some sort of injury. Jack didn’t like to think about whether the damage was physical or psychological. It didn’t matter anyway. It was still Anthea’s kid, and Jack still had to help him.

“You wanna come with me?” It was all Jack could think to say. How’d you persuade a street kid to follow you along all trusting anyway? _I’ll feed you, kiddo. All safe back at home with me._ Like hell. This kid didn’t look like the type to fall for that. Someone out there was taking pity on Jack after this shitshow of a night though, because after an inscrutable pause, the kid nodded, and Jack led the way to his flat.

Hey, maybe it’d feel more like home with some company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you read this all the way to the end, thank you!! I have no idea if I'm gonna get readers, because I know it's a bit out there as far as fics go, but I'm honestly so excited!!!!! I'm not even kidding when I say this fic has been with me for YEARS. It was the first thing I ever wrote, and I've done so many iterations of it as my writing has improved, and this one I'm publishing is another overhaul again, and it's about time I took the plunge and put it out there.
> 
> (so scary tho ;_;)
> 
> But yeah, this is a very, very long fic, so just bear with it while it gets where it's going. It starts at the beginning and travels with Lukas as he grows. 
> 
> I'm always happy to hear anything anyone has to say as well. I treasure any reviews I get, so _please_ if you have any thoughts.


	2. A Place to Call Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack brings Lukas back to his flat and fumbles for a way to tell him about his past. They say you can tell a lot about someone from how they live, and Jack's place is far from ideal. Perhaps a little company can make it more like home?

It took near an hour to get back. Jack had been out in a completely different part of the city last night (hence why he’d been sleeping in the alley) and his stomach was protesting way too much for the tube. Lukas didn’t give him any questioning looks about the walk … or mime any questions or something – fuck knew how he talked besides nodding or shaking his head. In fact, Lukas walked about ten paces behind him for the whole journey, pretending he wasn’t with Jack and doing a damn sound job of it. Not a soul noticed Lukas. He wove between the crowds with a grace many lifelong Londoners hadn’t picked up yet and dipped his head just enough to avoid any chance eye contact. He was invisible, which was probably why he was dissociating himself from Jack. 

Jack stood out.

On the best of days, his presence was obnoxious, but now he slouched and glowered and shouldered his way past the civilians who didn’t already give him a wide berth and suspicious eyes. He’d already traded insults with one skinhead prick who’d thought he had the right of way. So fair enough that Lukas trailed behind. Not that it stopped him tossing glances over his shoulder every damn minute to check the kid was still following him.

By the time they got to his building, he was checking over his shoulder at least three times a minute, doubts bulging into an oppressive certainty that next time he looked, the kid would be gone. Poof, vanished into the crowds, and Jack would have fucked up _again._ So seeing Lukas follow him up the staircase brought a wide grin to his face.

Took a little edge off his arch-nemesis _stairs._ He’d rather crawl all the way back to that alley than climb them right now, but the lift was broken. As always. Best not to catch it even when it did work because there was about a 50/50 chance that it’d break down with him in it, and that meant a long, boring wait at best and a plummeting drop to his death at worst.

He passed Kev on the way up, a bruiser Jack worked with sometimes who lived two floors down. Jack hardly managed to nod a greeting, but Kev gave a grin that said he understood and clapped Jack on the shoulder with one meaty hand as he walked past. Jack had to stop to steady himself before he could continue.

Fucker didn’t understand shit if he was near knocking Jack flying like that when his stomach was flip-flopping like this.

Finally, they reached floor nine. Jack used the wall to hold himself upright as he trudged down the corridor, fingers trailing over the flaking, dirty paint. When he got to his door, he stopped and sighed. Hanging upright by a splintering piece of wood attached to the lock – the only sturdy part of the door. That’d be the TV gone _._

Well at least he didn’t have to break in himself.

“This is it, kid,” Jack said as Lukas stopped just outside the door, one eyebrow raised in something that looked a damn lot like condescension, and Jack’s heart gave a squeeze. Jesus fuck, he looked so much like Mik with that look on. “Come in. Sit down somewhere. I need to…” Jack grimaced at the door, fingers pushing back through the side of his hair. “I’ll just … tape it closed or something. Fucking hell.”

Lukas chose one of the seats at the kitchenette table. Given a choice between that and the sofa – the only choices – it was hundred percent the better option. Jack didn’t like to think about what all the stains on there were, but he was desensitised enough to all this griminess that it didn’t bother him. If the kid had been living on the streets, he’d get used to it – to the whole place – within the week.

Jack rinsed out three glasses, the cold water splashing over his icicle fingers and making him cringe, and filled them to the brim with water before he joined Lukas at the table. One down in front of the kid, and once he’d swallowed two painkillers, Jack dumped himself the opposite side of the table with his own two glasses. With his arm outstretched like this, the Dark Mark on his forearm stuck out like a brand, and the sickly pink it’d faded to since the Fall only made it look more violent.

Scratching at it, Jack tore his eyes away.

“How d’you like it?”

With those eerie, mismatched eyes, Lukas stared at him. The heating whirred in the silence and Jack reckoned his whole damn face was crimson by the time Lukas, slowly and deliberately, shrugged.

Couldn’t talk. Right. Actually…

Jack got up and rifled through one of the drawers. Came up a bit sticky – whole damn drawer was sticky – but it’d do.

“Here y’go, kid.” Jack dropped a notepad and a biro in front of Lukas, who regarded it with mild surprise. “Write on there if you wanna say something. Don’t worry about how much paper you use, I’ve got more lying around somewhere and we’ll buy more to—" Jack clenched his teeth against his babbling. “I’ll buy more if … well, y’know.”

Lukas raised both his eyebrows this time and pulled the notepad towards him. He wrote quickly and surprisingly neatly and turned the pad to Jack.

‘ _How do you know my name?_ ’ it read.

Weird first question. “Don’t happen often?”

Lukas scowled and shook his head.

“Fair enough. I knew you when you were a baby.” Jack tapped the side of his eye socket. “I recognised you earlier by your eyes.”

Lukas wrote the next note so hastily that his tidy handwriting turned to a scrawl. ‘ _You knew me before? When? For how long? Did you know the boy—'_ He tugged the pad back before Jack finished and added something else. ‘ _Did you know the boy who was shouting after me? Who are you?’_ The last question was printed and underlined twice.

Jack scratched his fingers through the side of his hair. How much did he tell the kid? Obviously everything. If there was one thing Jack weren’t ever gonna be, it was a parent. Sure, he’d look after the kid – he was a fucking _kid_ after all – but damn if Jack was going to be a father to him. He weren’t cut out for that at all. The more he distanced himself, the less his clusterfuck of a skull would rub off. Best case, he dug up Anthea within the week and palmed the kid back off to her.

So if he wasn’t parenting Lukas, he wasn’t coddling him, so no reason not to tell him everything, but right now, they just needed to get things straightened out. A more elaborate explanation could wait.

“Well…” Jack rubbed deeper at the back of his neck, digging his fingers into the aches. “Um…”

Lukas sat back in his chair and twirled one finger in a ‘hurry up’ gesture. A wash of familiarity, full of warmth and a toxic itch right at the back of Jack’s mind. The multitude of tiny scars on the palms of his hands caught the light that swirled through the water glass. Snorting, Jack slumped in his chair and shook his head. Just like Mik.

Shit, he needed to find Anthea and get rid of this kid.

“Well, like I said, I knew you when you were a baby. You went missing just after you turned one.” Jack trapped the paper beneath one finger as Lukas went to pull it back. “Promise I’ll tell you the whole story later, but let’s just skim over everything right now. That alright?”

Lukas nodded, a measured dip of his chin. He pulled the paper again and Jack let him take it. ‘ _If you don’t, the moment I realise you don’t plan to, I’m leaving._ ’

Jack bit down on his tongue to supress a smile. Hey, maybe Lukas planned to stay at least for a little while. That’d be nice. Jack would hold up his end of the bargain and he’d get a little warm glow to keep him company as he drilled past rock bottom.

“Hey, I might be a total shitbag, but I keep my promises,” Jack said. “But yeah, you disappeared – kidnapped, we all reckoned. Then when we couldn’t find you, we reckoned dead and that was the last anyone heard of you ‘til now.”

Another nod, and Lukas prodded one of the notes he’d written earlier. _Did you know the boy who was shouting after me?_

“Oh, uh … nah, I’ve never seen that kid before in my life. Looked younger than you, even. Probably weren’t even born when you disappeared.”

‘ _How old am I?’_

“Oh, fuck. Uh…” Jack ran over the dates in his head and weren’t that a monumental effort wading through this mush inside his skull. “You’re six.” Jack wasn’t surprised when Lukas’s mouth dropped open. If he didn’t know his age, he’d be judging by his looks and by them, Jack would put him at nearly ten. “Halloween birthday, if you fancy that. Seventy-eight.”

Lukas nodded and tapped the underlined question. _Who are you?_

“I’m Jack.”

The kid shrugged. It seemed to say ‘that’ll do’, which was good because it was all Jack was gonna share. He’d left the rest behind long ago.

The first glass of water sat empty, a ray of sunlight streaking up the side, and now Jack sipped the second. The silence between them dragged out.

How did he even tell the kid his story? Total loss on that one. There was way too much to put into one coherent tale, for Jack at least. His old friends – Lukas’s parents and the others who’d known the kid – they’d been way better with words; they’d have managed it. Jack was just a shitbag junkie with a tongue that stumbled over telling the time.

Jack started when the notepad appeared in front of his face. Damn, he’d zoned out completely there. Needed to get some fucking sleep before he tried to explain _anything,_ and that was what’s what.

‘ _What are you thinking about?_ ’ the note read. Jack frowned and Lukas pulled the pad back and wrote again. ‘ _You looked very thoughtful for a while. I was curious_.’

Kid would learn better than thinking Jack actually had a single coherent thought rolling ‘round his head when he stared at walls like that.

“Nothing really, kid.” Lukas scowled at him. “How to tell you about all the disappearance shit, I guess. It’s a helluva long story if you want all the ins and outs.”

Jack stood up and went to fill another glass of water. Beside the sink was the pouch of baccy he’d stopped to buy after borrowing a tenner off Turner when he passed him on the way home. Lukas had disappeared somewhere while Jack went in the shop but popped back up trailing Jack almost as soon as the shop door knocked shut behind him. Jack fished in his drawer for skins and filters, then brought them back to the table and rolled a cigarette.

“You mind?”

Lukas shook his head and Jack pulled his lighter out, grimacing at the tiny puddle of lighter fluid at the bottom. Fuck sake, he’d never get it lit. He flicked it, flicked it, flicked it again. Tiny sparks flew but a flame didn’t pop up. Jack tilted it over and held down the gas, rolling the flint awkwardly with his other hand. Still nothing. He squeezed his eyes shut, tugging his fingers through his hair, and hissed between his teeth.

When he opened them, Lukas had his hand stretched out with a little smirk on his lips, and when Jack went to pass him the lighter, he pulled his hand away and pointed at the rollie pinched between Jack’s lips. Weird thing to ask for but Jack handed it over anyway.

“Good luck getting that thing lit without—" Lukas, with a cute little frown, stared at the tip of the cigarette and snapped his fingers at the end. Jack’s mouth dropped open— “… a goddamn fucking lighter.”

The tip had flared and now it glowed red hot, wisps of smoke swirling from the end.

Well, that definitely solved some problems.

The kid wasn’t quite looking at him. Eyes like a shutter had banged shut behind them. Jack grinned and, mostly for show, made a small beckoning gesture with his fingers. The rollie slipped from Lukas’s loose grip and floated over to Jack. He caught it, took a drag with all the dry smoke flooding his tongue, and sighed. That was what he’d wanted all fucking day.

Lukas’s pad appeared in front of Jack’s face again. ‘ _How did you do that?’_ underlined with a thick scribble.

Jack grinned at him. “How’d _you_ get it lit?”

Lukas took his time over his explanation, and much of it was crossed out when he showed it to Jack. And that was cute and also kinda sad. Jack’d never had that problem – at least not with magic – but at least the kid wouldn’t have to worry about Jack freaking on him with it.

‘ _It’s something I can do. I taught myself. I have some sort of power. I can make it do whatever I like. How can you do it too? I thought I was the only one_.’

Jack supposed he should be impressed by Lukas’s control. It _was_ pretty nuts good. Only one other person Jack had known had anywhere near that control, but that one other went _beyond_ control. Lukas wouldn’t have that level for a long time, no matter what he said about being able to do anything he wanted. To be fair, seeing Mik in his eyes like that – in his face and the way he stood – Jack wouldn’t be half-surprised if he got there sooner rather than later.

A stab of some wet, aching feeling got him right in the gut, and gritting his teeth, Jack closed it off.

Focus on the kid, not the past.

“It ain’t just you,” Jack said, “and it ain’t just us. Well, actually, what you just did with your hands and your head to control it – that’s pretty damn special. Most people use these—" Jack wiggled his fingers and his kitchen drawer slid open. A slim stick of wood drifted over, tumbling head over tail through the air, and settled into his palm. A small smile pulled at his lips at the familiar pulse his wand sent up his arm. Like a cat rubbing its face against his knuckles after he’d been away. He could almost hear the purr. “It’s a wand.”

Lukas raised an eyebrow and Jack laughed. Jeez, it was uncanny. But it was kinda better.

“Just about everyone who uses, magic—" Lukas huffed out a breath through his nose, both eyebrows up and a sardonic smile on his lips. “Yeah, magic. Most people who use magic have to use a wand, plus you gotta use a wand for anything special anyway – and most people who can do magic without one, and that’s like no one anyway – they do it after _years_ of practice and then can hardly lift a pen.

“There’s only one other guy I knew who could do it as easily as us, and he’s … he died. A few years ago now. I mean, a decade, I guess. Shit…” Another stir went through his chest saying that, a much more familiar one that clogged his lungs up with water, so he moved on quick as quick. “So it still makes you special. Even if I can do it as well.”

Lukas stared hard at Jack with measuring eyes, head tilted ever so slightly. It was starting to get a little uncomfortable by the time Lukas broke his gaze. _Just like Mik._

Lukas wrote quickly. ‘ _Do these magical people live elsewhere? Secretly?’_

“Secretly, the whole society is hidden from the muggles – non-magic people – and there’s way too many laws about it, but they live in amongst the muggles, just … separate.” Jack paused as Lukas jotted something down on the pad, but he didn’t lift the notepad, so Jack carried on. “Good thing this has come up really. Your parents, they were both magical and I’d have had to explain the whole magic thing to tell you your story, and fuck me, that would’ve been a nightmare if you didn’t know shit about it. I mean there’s still a load more to tell you but at least we’ve gotten the ‘fuck off, you’re crazy’ bits sorted.”

A little laugh escaped Lukas’s lips at that. It came out weird – silent, not much more than huffing breaths – and Lukas blinked hard, pressing his lips shut as soon as the noise got past them. Jack frowned, a little ache nestling under his ribs. Was laughing that surprising for this kid?

This time Lukas showed Jack what he’d written, though he’d torn off the other page and set it to the side. ‘ _I’d like you to tell me about how I went missing and explain briefly who my parents are and how you know me, but I don’t want to know about this magic world unless I have to. I don’t want to have anything to do with it_.’

“How come?”

‘ _I just don’t._ ’

“Sure. When do you want to hear about your parents? Like, can it wait ‘til I’ve had a nap? I’m wrecked and you don’t look too hot yourself.” Lukas narrowed his eyes for a moment then nodded. “I’ve only got one bed. Reckon you can sleep on the sofa? You’ll fit way better than me.” Lukas gave it a quick glance and scrunched up his nose. “I’ll give you some sheets.” Lukas nodded. “Great.”

Jack stood up and went to the window, opening it a crack to flick his fag end outside. He grabbed sheets and a blanket from his room, and then on a second thought, grabbed two. It _was_ damned cold in his flat. Heating didn’t work for shit. Lukas stood idly before the small coffee table where there _had_ been a TV sat on top. Whoever had broken into Jack’s flat had stolen that and the video player, but it wasn’t really a great loss. He’d stolen it off someone else in the first place.

Jack tossed the bedding over the back of the sofa. “So…” Lukas raised an eyebrow at him and twirled his fingers again. “Are you staying?”

Lukas nodded and then held up a finger ( _but…)_ and pointed at the notepad still sitting on the coffee table. Jack took a step in that direction but stopped as Lukas started waving his hands in choppy gestures ( _no!)_. When he had Jack’s attention again, he pointed at the notepad then mimed writing and jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

“I don’t understand…”

Lips pressed tightly together, Lukas stalked over to the table and picked his notepad. He flicked back a page and pointed at something he’d already written – the note saying he’d leave if he thought Jack wasn’t going to tell him everything. _Ah, something he’d already written_. He was staying unless Jack broke his promise.

“Yeah, I’ll tell you. Don’t worry. Now get some sleep and _please_ don’t wake me up. I’ll be starved enough to be up for dinner, but lemme sleep ‘til then.” Lukas nodded and Jack smiled at him, already taking steady steps backwards towards his room. “Thanks. Night, kid.” Lukas gave him a little wave. Jack paused in his doorway. “It’s good to have you here.”

Lukas’s smile almost seemed to say the same.

•─────⋅☾ ⋅ ☽⋅─────•

Jack never found Anthea.

For a good month, he spent every waking hour looking high and low as his obnoxiously obvious fugitive head allowed, and considering most of the contacts Jack was after were of the no-good kind, it was a pretty thorough search. He turned out Wizarding Britain and Wizarding Denmark – the Valrssens, Anthea’s family, were from up that way – but no cigar. Not even a goddamn cigarette. Astraea Valrssen, Anthea’s sister – she was hard to miss, knocking at the door of the Danish Minister’s Office with her silver-headed cane, but Jack came up just short of leaving Lukas with her instead.

Truth be told, Jack kind of liked the kid, and the thought of Astraea’s black, regal gaze tied his stomach in knots. She’d seen too much of the bad side and the sad side of him, and his spine melted before he could get the guts.

So, with Sirius Black holed up in Azkaban and no living relatives that side either, Jack did the unthinkable – he adopted a kid.

And … it kinda went well. Miracle of the fucking century, ‘cause Jack was a clusterfuck of issues so big they’d probably exert their own gravity well if someone could materialise them, and god knew in those first couple of years, some _normal_ kid would’ve gotten messed up to shit by all the times Jack disappeared on benders and stumbled into the flat too drunk to stand.

Every fucking time he sobered up afterward, lying in bed – sometimes his own, sometimes not, sometimes just another fucking alley floor – the guilt consumed him. A black hole starting in his gut that bloomed and twisted through his whole self until all that was left was that _pressure_ cracking his skull open and his hand pressed there while he gasped back the tears.

Except Lukas wasn’t normal.

When Jack saw Lukas in those mornings, afternoons, evenings after, the kid just looked up from his book or a game or the meal he’d just cooked. A grin at once like a wolf and a serpent would bloom across his face, and he’d burst into laughter.

Kid didn’t get bothered by Jack being a fuck-up. The kid just thought it was funny.

And Jack _did_ try. A lot of the time, he was sober, more and more as the years went on. He tried to discipline Lukas – tell him to go to bed when the clock struck one and he found the kid still gaming on the sofa. Tell him to eat his greens, wash the dishes, do his schoolwork, that sorta thing. Every damn time, Lukas just got this _look_ on his face – a look too old for a damn kid and drenched with such blatant indulgence that Jack’s cheeks heated up – and flashed him the note that the little prick kept stored at the beginning of his notepad.

‘ _I’m not here for you to baby me, Jack. I just like the company and somewhere to sleep, but I’m more than happy to give it up and go somewhere else._ ’

Like seriously, how did he argue with that? At least Lukas did the dishes, and the kid was too smart by half to get told to do his schoolwork.

The greens were more of a problem, but hey, he was working on it.

All in all, they were good. Lukas was good. Not normal by any means – he had a temper and the emotional range of a teaspoon and was manipulative as shit to boot, but he was, as far as Jack was concerned, incredibly well-adjusted all things considered.

Most of Jack’s friends didn’t question the random kid Jack showed up with to poker night one month and brought every night since, no matter that they looked like chalk and cheese next to each other. Jack told them Lukas was his cousin’s kid, and all of them looked sceptical at having a kid crouch on a chair beside the wide table while they drank and smoked and snorted coke, right up until Lukas stacked the last of Turner’s chips in his pile and spread a four-five off-suit bluff onto the table, winning the night.

Jack had ruffled his hair and called him lucky, but even though Lukas scowled and said there wasn’t any luck about it, the name stuck anyway. Jack’s lucky charm.

Eventually, Jack started taking him other places as well. So long as the event wouldn’t have that big red _EXPLICIT_ rating stamped over the attendance card, Jack took him along. The kid seemed to like it, skulking about and watching all Jack’s gutterrat acquaintances with eyes like a serpent and a smile that came both as close and as far from innocence as Jack had seen on him.

It was probably good for Jack too. If Jack brought Lukas along, it kept him toeing the edge. Wasn’t like he didn’t keep a hawk-eye on the kid every minute they hung around those sleazebags, and he knew he couldn’t do it if he got fucked up, so it kept him tipsy, kept him up out the gutter, and … it was actually doing him some good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I considered doing a big info dump where Jack tells Lukas everything, but I think it's better left as implied, and Lukas will drip feed you what he's found out as and when it comes up. 
> 
> I've tried to include all my OCs in very similar ways, and that is that they *could* exist, but the books simply wouldn't have had reason to cover them, but by twists of plot and circumstance, they now take on a role in my story.


	3. History Revisited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lukas wakes up with a nightmare more like memories from his lost years, haunted by the boy with the lightning scar, and recalls a conversation with Jack that must have knocked them loose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, this is the chapter in which I deal with my previous self writing in that goddamn mindscape trope and wrestle it into something that makes sense. Unfortunately, I need the visual to get Jack to make the comment about it for ~mystery purposes~. It won't be a recurring theme, I promise.
> 
> .

_1 9 8 7_

•─────⋅☾ ⋅ ☽⋅─────•

Lukas woke with a jerk and his hands pressed to his mouth to keep in a scream. He kept his eyes squeezed closed until he made out the sound of Jack stirring beside him and normality started to filter back in, chasing out the icy unrealities of the nightmare.

Jack was getting better at waking, but he still slept through nine times out of ten. Every time, a small knot of resentment twisted in Lukas’s stomach. He couldn’t get rid of it no matter how much he tried to tangle his mind out of that mess while he sat alone in the dark. But Jack’s frustration always eased it out, when the morning came and he knew just by looking at Lukas’s face that he’d failed to wake up again.

Except this time it was better that Jack only stirred the once and stayed fast asleep. It’d been just as horrifying as all the rest, but this one had been _different._ He needed to think.

Soft, silver light cast low illumination across the kitchen when Lukas padded in. The moon, still full to the naked eye, peered through the high kitchen window, bathing the flat in its cool glow. The last traces of fear seeped from his bones as he climbed onto the counter. Stars peeked through the murky window, and those pinpricks that shone even against the slather of light pollution licking amber across the sky would always be Lukas’s favourites, the essence of darkness that broke through even when human density sought to block out the night.

Sat there with dim illumination seeping across his skin, Lukas pulled Jack’s tobacco towards him. He already knew how to roll just for all the times when Jack bitched about being too tired to do it, and the cigarettes had been growing more tantalising every time he woke up before dawn. What did it really matter if he had one? Jack wasn’t awake to know.

He could already feel something of the person he’d become, deep in the depths of his mind, and that person was a creature of vices. It … didn’t make sense. It wasn’t normal getting these flashes of an adult Lukas fully formed while his age still sulked in single digits. Even the concept of it being strange, he knew, was strange. Learning who he was over the past few years had been more like remembering, and he knew even more now that there was something strange about his missing memories.

Lukas regarded his cigarette critically. Not as good as Jack, but he was pretty damn good. A small smile tugged at the corners of his lips as he leant forwards to light it off the hob. The rapid click of the gas igniter sounded like the stutter of a machine gun in the silence of the night, and the first drag made him cough so loudly that he was worried he’d wake Jack up.

Once he’d made sure he didn’t have any company, he tried again, this time taking a smaller puff. Not half bad. Against the darkness of the room, Lukas pictured Jack with a cigarette hanging from his lips – and he’d always thought that looked so cool – and slowly, let the image morph into his own gaunt, childish face.

Lukas grinned. Still cool.

He’d have to ask Jack about anything magic could do about the bad bits in the morning. Jack was _always_ telling Lukas all the reasons he shouldn’t start smoking since Lukas had asked Kev for some of his cigarette on one of the poker nights. The idea of Lukas smoking seemed to make him even more fraught than any of the other vices Jack indulged in, and Jack’s lectures on the negatives always made Lukas grin.

So magic against it – he was sure Jack would have some. Lukas knew he was pretty, and he wanted to stay that way.

The nicotine relaxed him already. Maybe a little much with his head whirling too light up to the sky, but he liked that – the distance from himself. Lukas moved over to the sofa, grabbing the ashtray along the way, and kicked his feet up on the coffee table. Once he was comfortable, he closed his eyes and sunk into the sofa, toying with the memory of the conversation with Jack that had triggered the dreams.

•─────⋅☾ ⋅ ☽⋅─────•

It had been a chilly day in November, coming up to the three-year mark since Lukas had first come to live with Jack.

They lounged on the sofa, resting against one arm each with their feet tangling in the middle under a patchwork blanket. The warmth trapped beneath it sunk into Lukas’s bones and bundled him up in a dozy sort of pleasure, and while he listened to Jack talk, he nuzzled into that fuzzy warmth building up in his chest, rubbing his feet against the heat of Jack’s legs while he hid his smile behind his steaming mug of coffee. Jack didn’t bother to hide his. His coffee plus a generous shot of whiskey or two sat nestled in his lap, and he had a smoking cigarette pinched between his fingers.

In the little vignette that opened his memory, Lukas had his head tossed back, laughing silently at a story Jack had just finished telling, while Jack leant back against the arm, crossing his free hand behind his head, and … stared. The low light cast his bright grey eyes aglow while he just _watched,_ gaze pinned on Lukas’s face.

Like Lukas liked being stared at even for a couple of seconds. Before long, a twitch formed in his jaw, and he gritted his teeth and kicked Jack, _finally_ snapping him out of his gawking. Catching Lukas’s glare, Jack scratched the back of his head, sheepish.

“Sorry, just thinking about something.”

Lukas turned his palm up and tilted his head.

“Well, you remember when we met the second time?” A rhetorical question. Jack knew he remembered. “There was that kid running down the street shouting your name, right? I mean I guess he was chasing you, and when we got back here you asked me if I knew him, right?” Lukas nodded again. “I heard you give them kids outside the other day a fake one, y’know? Plus when them ladies from downstairs came up with some pie like we was boys-next-door, remember?”

Lukas nodded. He did, and the women had learnt very quickly they _weren’t._

“Yeah…” Jack mulled the word over his tongue. “Just makes me bet Kev and the boys only know your name ‘cause I introduced you first, and that makes no one but me and the guys I told who know it, y’know…” Jack spread his hand, a sheepish kind of twist to his lips, “apart from that kid.”

Lukas wanted to sigh, but he pressed his lips tight as he wrote so he didn’t. Honestly, he was surprised Jack had picked that up. Jack was clever, yes, but his brain was scattered so far to the wind Lukas usually had to repeat his questions three times before Jack clocked them if they weren’t already talking.

‘ _Very observant of you, Jack._ ’ And if that came across snarky, let it. Lukas didn’t want to talk about this.

A grin spread across Jack’s lips, all white teeth and a wolfish edge, before he caught himself and straightened his lips. Getting the serious look on. Jack did the same face every time he was trying to be serious. “So if you haven’t told anyone your name but me and you had to ask me if I knew who that kid was, how come he knew your name?”

Lukas shrugged.

Something flashed across Jack’s face and he sat up, arms resting on the way the blanket tented between his raised knees. “You don’t know? How can you _not_ know?”

‘ _I don’t remember. I don’t know who he is. I’ve never seen him before in my life_.’

There was a furrow in Jack’s brow that was getting deeper every minute. “But I’m right, huh? You’ve never told anyone but me your name.”

‘ _As far as I remember. I make a point not to._ ’ It was the only thing he knew about himself that went beyond these memories and it was … it was like his treasure, jealously guarded.

“You remember everything though, Lucky.”

‘ _It had to start somewhere._ ’

“And where _did_ it start?”

‘ _Jack, leave it._ ’

“It doesn’t make sense though!”

‘ _How?_ ’’ Lukas wished he could speak at times like this. The only way to convey how cold his tone would have been was to glare at Jack.

“Well…” Jack took a drag of his diminishing cigarette and frowned down at his coffee. Gathering his thoughts. Lukas wished he _wouldn’t._ Everything else he’d just _leave_ when Lukas told him to, but … was it any surprise? This was strange, and Jack didn’t even know the half of it. Lukas shouldn’t blame him; he wouldn’t drop it either – he _hadn’t_ – but regardless, he _did_ blame him.

Stupid Jack.

“Well,” Jack said again, “do you remember how you got on the streets?” Lukas thinned his lips and shook his head, and Jack’s lips parted, eyebrows jumping. His fingers loosened on the coffee cup and it tilted at a dangerous angle as he leant further forward. “When?” Lukas shook his head again, grudgingly. “Then you must have met the kid _just_ before you met me. I mean you were still clean, right? And your clothes were in decent shape, so no way you’d been living rough for more than a week…”

Lukas didn’t like this. His heart beat too hard in his chest, some squirming edge of black panic closing around the base of his spine. He didn’t remember. His hand shook as he scribbled out his note. Why didn’t he remember?

‘ _Jack, fucking leave it_.’

“One more question?”

Lukas nodded. He didn’t have to answer.

“When you say you don’t remember, is it just that your memory’s all patchy or you don’t remember _anything_ at all from before when your memory got like photographic?”

Lukas shook his head. He wasn’t answering that. He sipped his coffee, staring at the dark liquid and not meeting Jack’s eyes.

“You don’t remember _anything_?” Jack’s voice was full of incredulity. Of _course_ he’d guess the answer from Lukas _refusing_ to answer. Stupid. _Don’t fucking say it, Jack…_ “Lukas, what the fuck? You mean you’ve just had a whole fucking chunk of your memory missing for—for—since like _three_ _years_ ago and you haven’t said a single fucking thing!”

Jack paused. Lukas couldn’t breathe, little sharp empties that hurt his chest to make. _Fuck off. Fuck off. Fuck off._

“Look at me, Lucky.” Jack waved his hand in front of Lukas’s bowed face. _Fuck. Off._ “Look at me. That’s not—"

Lukas slapped Jack’s hand away. He looked up and met Jack’s wide eyes with a snarl on his lips. When the words started to slip past his lips, he couldn’t do anything to stop it. It was a tide and his mind screamed, but he couldn’t stop it.

“Would you like to know what my first memory is, Jack?” Lukas said in a low, croaking voice. Every word was a stumbling stuttering mess made a hundred times worth by these harsh, panting breaths that he couldn’t choke down. “It was a—a w—woman screaming and a dirty space behind a dumpster. The first thing I can re—remember is watching you rob that hooker in a filthy fucking alleyway, and when I stood there watching you, I couldn’t—I—I couldn’t remember anything else either.”

Lukas raised his voice to a shout. It hurt. Right down in the strange middle of his throat. Hurt like shattered glass, just the way his voice sounded. “Do you know what that’s like? When I didn’t speak to you it was because I couldn’t even fucking remember if I could speak or not. I was t—too f—fucking—too scared to try!

“I don’t remember anything before that day but I—I _remember._ I have so many _t—things_ floating around in my head. I don’t understand all of them but they’re _there._ So explain that to me! How do I know so much when I don’t know a single fucking _thing_?” He nearly screamed the last bit and his voice broke off entirely. Gasping, he sunk back against the arm of the chair, hands pressed against his face. Jack gaped at him, totally vacant, and a strange giggle spilt past Lukas’s lips, a rasping unpleasant sound.

Lukas had almost finished his coffee before Jack pulled his thoughts together, although he had had the presence of mind to shut his mouth much sooner. The brief spike of emotion had … flattened itself. Once again, Lukas’s mind was a still lake, zen. Maybe Jack _would_ be able to help him with this.

“I think…” Jack said slowly when he eventually spoke, “that this has something to do with you going missing.”

Lukas blinked. He tried to reply aloud, finally breaking his silence, but behind his working lips, his tongue felt too heavy in his mouth and a prickle of panic moved along his spine. As he picked up the notepad and pen, Jack’s face fell a little. Understandable. Lukas’s heart fell too.

‘ _I never actually thought about that._ ’

“Huh… Well, there’s five years where neither of us know where you were, so it all goes that maybe someone took you, dumped you somewhere, decided it weren’t working, and, uh … wiped your memories and ditched you on the street.”

Great. Like a fucking old floppy disk.

“You must have _been_ somewhere else,” Jack continued, scratching his jaw like he did when he thought, “otherwise that kid wouldn’t have known you. You hadn’t been dressed by a wizard either, so whoever kidnapped you probably didn’t keep you.” Jack paused a moment. “They were _really_ bad clothes, but they were picked out by a muggle or someone who knew muggles. You oughta see what most wizards come up with.” Jack pulled a face. “It’s _bad._ ”

‘ _That makes sense. The kid was dressed muggle too._ ’ Lukas tapped his pen against the notepad to stop Jack speaking and wrote quickly. ‘ _How did you learn to dress like a muggle?’_

“Oh.” Jack’s cheeks went a little red and he scratched the back of his neck. The strange tattoo of a skull and serpent marring his arm gleamed like a burn. “I spent loads of time in the muggle world back in the day. Y’know, before I was forced to live here. Picked stuff up.”

‘ _Pretty useful._ ’

That brought a smile to Jack’s face. “Yeah. I fit right in.”

Lukas eyed Jack’s messy, bleached hair and his silver nose ring. ‘ _Sort of._ ’

They both laughed.

“Them memories though…” Jack trailed off and seemed to look to Lukas for permission to bring the subject back up. Lukas nodded. Now it was out, it didn’t bother him. “Like, there _is_ something I can do that might tell us more. I don’t know much about it other than how to do it, but that should be plenty. It’s just … well, how much do you trust me, kid?”

‘ _It depends. What am I trusting you with?_ ’

“It’s a branch of magic called legilimency.” Jack grimaced and Lukas was on the verge of working out what the word meant – _the art of something regarding the mind, Latin, where does legili come from? Leg... –_ when Jack spoke, clearing the matter up. “It’s mind magic. Legilimency is basically mind-reading.”

Lukas got halfway into shaking his head with vehemence before Jack spoke up hastily. “Nah, nah, nah. I’m not asking you to trust me enough to let me look at everything in your head, I’m asking you to trust me _not_ to look at anything – just to look for anything that might be shutting up your memories, y’know? I’d swear a magic oath, but you don’t know enough about those to trust them, I guess, so I’m asking you to trust _me._ I mean … if you don’t, I can start teaching you occlumency I guess, but it might take a while ‘til you—"

Lukas tapped his pen against the pad to stop Jack and wrote his note out quickly. ‘ _Promise me you won’t look at a single memory and you’ll stop if you even think you’re seeing something I wouldn’t want you to see._’

Jack’s lips parted again, mild surprise colouring his features, and that expression made Lukas happy to let him do whatever he was going to do. Jack really hadn’t been expecting him to agree anyway.

“I promise.” Jack leant forwards and his face was so solemn it made Lukas wanted to laugh just to break the moment. He was glad when one of those wolfish grins broke across Jack’s face. “Thanks, kid.”

 _Thanks for trusting me_ , Jack meant. Lukas smiled back and nodded. ‘ _Thank you to you too._ ’

“You’re welcome. Now—” the easy smile dropped off Jack’s face and he was serious again— “lean forwards and keep your eyes fixed on mine. Just keep thinking that you’re happy with me going in there.” His finger rapped against the side of Lukas’s head. “If you ain’t, it’s just gonna hurt like a bitch for you, so tell me now, and I’ll just dig up some shit on occlumency instead.” Lukas shook his head and gave Jack two thumbs up. “Alright then, now relax and don’t think about anything but letting me in your head, alright, kiddo? Relax. Just relax…”

It was over in a flash. One moment Lukas had his eyes locked with Jack’s, the next a flurry of images rifled across his mind, like different negatives all played together like frames of a film. Dusty corridors and tangled overgrown gardens, locked doors that wouldn’t even rattle in their frames, and rooms with ceilings that disappeared out of sight into musty darkness. Then it was over, and he could see Jack again, leant back against the arm of the chair with a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead.

“ _Gods,_ ” he groaned, “I’m so fucking out of practice.”

Lukas tapped his knee and turned his palm up when Jack looked at him, questioning.

“Well, there’s definitely something different about you, kid, that’s for sure.” Lukas shrugged. He knew that already. “You’ve got a fully formed like, uh…” Jack whirled his finger, nose scrunching up. “Can’t think of the goddamn word, but y’know. Ain’t no worry about me accidentally looking at memories I shouldn’t – they’re all packed up right neat. You could see things, right?” Lukas nodded. “Those were glimpses of what I was seeing, that’s what the inside of your head looks like, uh … magically speaking. Look I dunno, I’ve never seen anything like that before but Mik always told me _control of the mind, darling, is like building a doll house.”_ When he said that, Jack put on a long, drawn out nasal tone, then grinned at Lukas when he was done. “Guess that’s what he meant, huh?”

Lukas joined the dots up straight away. ‘ _And the locked doors…_ ’

“Bingo. Now I’m just guessing ‘cause I don’t know shit about this but with your head being so organised, it’s pretty straight forward like, but still, don’t take my word on it.”

‘ _I won’t_.’

Jack tried to swat Lukas over the head, but he leant back out of Jack’s reach, laughing.

“Alright, alright,” Jack said. “Business ‘en. So I said your head is really organised, it’s also really, uh … what’s the word? _Compartmentalised,_ yeah _._ All them different memories are in different places, so whoever locked up your memories – and they’re locked up for sure – they _only_ locked memories of events, most like. All that other shit that makes you _you –_ that’s all kicking. So I’ve got no fucking clue why your mindscape is so fancy, but you’re damn lucky it is or you would’ve woken up in that alley all baby and no sense. You would’ve learnt quicker, sure – your brain is more developed and all that shit – but you wouldn’t have stood up and watched me _take my wallet back_ from that bird and understood what was happening. Capiche?”

‘ _I do, and I’m getting more pissed off by the word._ ’

“Yeah, just wish I knew what it all fuckin’ meant. Sevvie or the Rosiers would’ve know…” Jack made a face. “I bet His fucking High Evilness would too.”

The Dark Lord. Lukas grinned, shaking his head. The more comfortable Jack had gotten with him over the last three years, the more he’d been coming out with these ridiculous monikers for the Dark Lord instead of his title. It spoke of a strange familiarity, but even so … the little spark in Lukas’s chest probably said pride that _his_ Jack laughed in the face of someone so powerful.

How incredible would it have been seeing Jack’s little rebellions with the Dark Lord? All the sniped words flying over His High Evilness’s head while Lukas laughed behind his hand.

Shaking his head, Lukas wrote out his note. That was silly. The Dark Lord – he must have been so far beyond Lukas’s comprehension of intelligence and power that he was more god than man. Not that Lukas would ever say that to Jack.

‘ _It’s not important if it’s not to do with my memory loss._ ’

“Nah, I don’t think it is. There _is_ something though.” Lukas gestured for Jack to continue. “Well, your head’s got the shape of this _huge_ manor. I wound up outside it before I started looking, and at least it was huge from the _outside._ Inside, I only seemed to get around a quarter of it. All the doors that led out of the wing were locked too. I mean, it could just be for appearances but … I mean, magic don’t really like excess like that.”

A prickle of ice crept up Lukas’s spine as he listened to Jack’s words, and the letters he wrote were shaky, uncertain. ‘ _What are you saying?_ ’

Jack’s grimace matched how Lukas felt. “You know what I’m saying, kid. Not counting them bits we know are locked up, there’s about three-quarters of that manor in your head I ain’t getting into, and I’ll bet they’re locked up just as tight for you.”

•─────⋅☾ ⋅ ☽⋅─────•

Since then, these strange dreams had haunted the dark corners of Lukas’s night-time. They’d all had the quality of memories, and he remembered them better than other dreams, which wakefulness brushed off like cobwebs draping his closed eyes.

They played out through a toddler’s eyes, always with the same four figures – a family which wasn’t his, and with the dreams, came _feelings_ toward the family. Lukas couldn’t tell if he formed them anew or remembered them, his mind easing down a familiar path. Most of it came as a tangle of apathetic _bad_ for all but one of the two children, one who obviously didn’t belong in the family either. For that boy, there was a weird sort of fondness, and Lukas teased the other aspect around while his head swirled under the crooked finger of the cigarette smoke until he came up with the descriptor.

Possessiveness.

Funny, because as soon as he laid his finger on the word, he realised that his feelings about Jack weren’t so different. Jack was his. They had something special and it belonged to Lukas, no one else.

But the boy… The boy was the oddest thing about the dreams, the feature that firmed them in reality. The boy who’d chased him down the street shouting his name.

He hadn’t made that connection until tonight. It was stupid being so blind to it; the boy hadn’t even looked much different in the more recent memories, no matter that they came in a jumbled confusion of cut-up scenes.

The loathing he’d felt for the family in the dreams had seemed inconsequential before tonight as well, distant and irrelevant. It was his past now. And the boy … it didn’t really matter that Lukas _had_ liked him. It wasn’t like Jack – it was passing, apathetic.

Except all of that was until _this_ dream, this nightmare. It was like his brain had been holding these scenes until it had no other jumbled memories to fling out, as if it didn’t want him to remember them at all, and he understood why. Those hateful feelings were concrete now and Lukas was glad that these memories weren’t, at least not to the standard of others. Even so, they made him shudder where he sat.

It was strange, juggling the memory of something you _knew_ had happened to you and yet none of the trauma, none of the gut-wrenching sickness that Lukas knew so well went with it – none of that touched him, and yet all he wanted was warmth to smother any memory of memory that still lurked like a sickness in his brain.

It was a shame hugging Jack would just make it worse.

So now maybe he actually had to _do_ something about it. About the boy, who, as far as Lukas knew, still lived with that _monster._ He didn’t want to leave anyone to that treatment. The neglect was _startling_. The boy, he’d worked out, was the same age as Lukas, give or take a year, but he looked several years younger.

Normally, he might have not bothered, but this time he … should. It felt wrong not to – it felt wrong to consider not bothering and just … not feeling anything at all. It wasn’t like it’d be hard – Jack could talk to Matthias, cash in a favour perhaps, and Matthias could get anyone tracked down.

With that weight off his mind, Lukas had the shower he’d promised himself and went back to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lucky's made an important decision, even if he's only doing it because he thinks he /should/. So next chapter, he and Jack have a field trip!
> 
> Also if anyone does have any thoughts on what I've written so far, I'd really love to hear! I'll continue to talk into the void, but I'm always happy when the void talks back.


	4. Boy Wonder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lukas and Jack follow the trail of his dreams, and who's waiting at the end of the road but Boy Wonder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The discussions from this chapter and the next will nail where Jack fits into the whole Death Eater narrative a bit more, as well as how I'm going to be treating the boy-who-lived business (and how Lukas & Jack are angling for it to be treated).
> 
> .

“I fucking hate Surrey.”

Lukas laughed, knocking his elbow against Jack’s arm. It was the middle of the night, and there was no one to be seen. All the houses were shut up tight, curtains pulled and lights off. Their footsteps echoed off the neatly kempt pavements, echoing softly between the widely spaced houses as if the quiet hushed even these unconstrained phenomena of nature. Those footsteps were their only company on the dark streets. It was a strange feeling after spending all the time he could remember in London; he’d never walked through streets this silent before, other than last Christmas Day.

They were dawdling. The later they got where they were going the better really – the deeper everyone would be asleep – but Jack was clearly bored out of his skull. It was bin day in this area and every set of black bags they passed, Jack slashed open with a knife and chucked them into the gardens. This – along with knocking loose stones off walls, throwing a brick through a window (and they’d run, cackling, for three streets after a scream came from the room), painstakingly removing a gate from its hinges and carrying it for several blocks, pissing on a couple of walls, and several other acts of petty vandalism and theft – was how Jack amused himself on the walk. Lukas amused himself by watching.

They reached their destination at about three in the morning, and Lukas would be glad to get inside. The last chill of winter still clung to these nights, and it drove its spite into his bones even through these thick layers. Lukas always got cold so easily. Jack had noticed him shivering a while ago and Lukas had watched him war between wanting to warm Lukas up and knowing that Lukas really wouldn’t want to be hugged. He’d settled with offering his hoodie, but Lukas had turned it down. Jack would be cold then, and that wasn’t any better.

“What number was it again?” Jack asked when they paused by the sign at the top of the street. Lukas held up four fingers. Jack peered down the street. “Looks just the same as the rest.”

That was all that could be said really, same as for every other house they’d passed. It wasn’t one of the well-off areas where the houses turned their own wealthy flair. Here, they all stood as little dollhouses along the road, cheap and churned out on a production line, and on the store shelves, they stood resplendent in their conformity side by side.

Lukas hated this sort of area too.

There wasn’t much need to sneak around. No one was up, none of the curtains were open, and Jack could get them out of there quickly if the police showed up, according to him. Some sort of magic thing. Lukas sort of hoped the police would show up so Jack would show him what it was – he was so loathe to use magic otherwise.

So they walked straight up the driveway and around the side. A wide lawn stretched out behind them, neat little flower beds bordering it, although most of the shrubs were skeletal and featureless, still guarding their bones against winter’s chill. Lukas had slaved in this garden with the boy, beaten down by the baking heat.

The back door had the sort of lock that Lukas could pick in less than a minute, and he did just that. It swung open and Lukas slipped through, paced through the kitchen and into the hall on silent feet. When no alarm went off, he gestured Jack inside.

Jack stopped just beside a mirror on the wall, and as Lukas caught sight of their reflections, he had to stifle a giggle.

They looked so bizarre. Jack looked too rough wherever he was, just a little bit too wild for any sort of civilization. It was something in his eyes, Lukas thought, in his stance. People always gave him a wide berth when they walked by. Sometimes he looked as if, if you said the wrong word to him, he’d snap and rip your throat out. Lukas knew he had more self-control than that, but there was just too much of an animal in him. Too much of the _wolf._

Lukas was the exact opposite, but the same. He knew the thoughts he had of himself were strange sometimes, but he could see a killer in himself as much as in Jack, a deadened one, one full of barely restrained, ice cold fury.

A voice whispered it in his ear whenever he looked at himself. The voice whispered of violence and gore and murder so vividly that sometimes Lukas blinked, and his reflection howled, blood smeared across his mouth and down his throat while it plucked its fingers in its cheeks to bear its knife-sharp teeth.

It scared him a little.

Even if you ignored all of that though, even the way they dressed looked strange in here. They wore too much black and metal, and their clothes were just that little bit too shabby, over-worn and second-hand.

“This is grim.” Jack’s whisper was a little too loud, the rough edge of his voice dragging against the silence.

Lukas nodded in agreement. It was so bland. Only a faint orange off the streetlights illuminated the hallway, but in the day, it was just as bad. Lukas’s boots muddied a cream carpet, and the road dust off his coat left murky streaks on white walls as he brushed past. The bare light breathed amber into the family pictures lining the walls. None of them showed Lukas or the boy, just the rotund son – the actual son, with his odd-looking parents.

But Lukas wasn’t here for them. Not this time. The room he recalled sharing with the boy was upstairs, one crowded with the son’s toys, hardly enough space for them to sleep. The boy – Lukas wished he could remember his name – had always wanted to play with them but he’d been too fearful.

He was right about to lead Jack up there, but something stopped him halfway down the hall, outside the cupboard beneath the stairs. A faint stirring against his skin brought him up short. Lukas turned on the spot, sniffing the air. What was that?

Like toffee. Toffee apples, that was it.

Jack tapped him on the shoulder and made Lukas’s gesture for ‘what?’ when Lukas looked around. Lukas pointed at the cupboard and put a finger to his lips. Now that there was silence, he could _hear_ it, the faint sound of panicked breath. He waved Jack back and opened the door.

The boy didn’t scream, as Lukas had half-expected. In fact, he didn’t make a sound. He just scrambled back into the corner with his hand pressed over his mouth. A light-switch dangled in the darkness, and hunching into the small space, Lukas reached out and pulled the cord.

The boy jumped so high he almost hit his head on the sloping ceiling. Behind thick wire-framed glasses, the boy’s eyes went round as the lenses.

Tiny. The room was fucking tiny, and the longer Lukas looked around, the more this anger built, pounding red at the base of his skull.

It was a bedroom, oh that was perfectly obvious. That bed was little more than a cot, but it was _there,_ and a meagre collection of belongings were arranged neatly in one corner, a stack of those oversized clothes that Lukas just about remembered in the other. It was a bedroom. In a cupboard under the stairs. A cupboard that Jack would have to kneel in, and the boy lived here.

“Lukas?” The boy’s whisper brought Lukas back to reality. His hand had fallen from his mouth and his lips made a perfect ‘O’. “Is it really you?”

Lukas pulled out the small notebook he kept on his person and a pen. His chest felt heavy doing it. It was stupid – it wasn’t as if seeing some shitty relic of his past should’ve changed anything, but … in those memories, he _had_ spoken. But here he was, amputated from them and perhaps the part that had really been cut out was his tongue.

‘ _It is,’_ he wrote, _‘I think_.’

“You came back!” The boy was smiling now. It seemed to capture enough of his thoughts that he didn’t question why Lukas wasn’t talking. “You promised you’d come back! I thought you’d forgotten about me. I saw you but…”

Should that make him feel guilty? Beneath the flickering light of the bulb, purple bruises peeked from beneath the baggy sleeve of the boy’s t-shirt, but … nothing. Nothing but this low, absent pulse in his skull. What should he feel? Apologetic?

‘ _I did forget. It wasn’t my fault, I’m sorry, but I remember now. Will you come with me? I have somewhere else for us to live now._ ’

“Is it … is it better than here?”

 _‘I wouldn’t take you anywhere else. Get your things, quickly and quietly. We’ll talk more outside._ ’

The boy nodded vigorously and jumped to his feet. He could still stand straight in the cupboard, but he wouldn’t for much longer. Miraculously, the boy had a practical edge. No whining or fussing as most kids tended to do; he put his things in a small backpack with haste, although Lukas tapped his shoulder and shook his head when he started cramming the clothes in too. The boy didn’t question it; he just dug under the cot and pulled out a deflated football instead.

When they both emerged into the hallway and closed the cupboard behind them, Lukas noticed Jack had disappeared. A mystery quickly solved when he heard a door open and close upstairs with a muted snick. Lukas ushered the boy outside and Jack met them there about ten minutes later with a sour look on his face.

“We gotta walk back. C’mon.”

‘ _Taxi?_ ’ Lukas wrote.

“With two little kids who look shit all like me at this time? Nah, I got legs, thanks.”

It took a little less time to walk back to the tube, (and Jack grumbled about catching that as well). They walked much quicker but the boy – whose name Lukas _still_ didn’t know – near fell to sleep on his feet halfway there, so Jack had carried him on his back. There was no time for conversations once they got home. Jack put the boy on the sofa, covered him with a blanket, and then he and Lukas retreated to bed.

•─────⋅☾ ⋅ ☽⋅─────•

The next morning, Lukas dragged a groaning Jack out of bed around eight, about six hours before he’d usually get up. The boy was already perky and alert, lying on the sofa with the blankets pulled up to his chin. Jack gave him a sort of _look_ that seemed to question his sanity for looking bright-eyed at this ridiculous time – he was used to it with Lukas by now – and stumbled over to the little kitchenette to make coffee. Lukas laughed and walked over to the boy, writing a note while he went.

‘ _What would you like for breakfast? We might have it and if we don’t, we can buy it for tomorrow._ ’

The boy blushed and shuffled into a sitting position. “I—I don’t know. You know what…” He trailed off and stared at his lap. Lukas did know. As if the boy, or Lukas while he was living there, had _ever_ had a choice of what to eat before.

Lukas tried to write as quickly as he could. If it were Jack, it wouldn’t matter, but most people got antsy with it. The boy was probably no different and confused to boot. ‘ _Well, you can have what Jack’s having but that’ll probably lead you to an early grave, or you can have what I’m having, which is nothing and I doubt you want that, or you can poke around in the cupboards, which you can do whenever you’re hungry and you can have whatever_ _you find in there.’_

The boy’s eyes widened. “Whatever?”

Well … the image of the gun beneath the kitchen sink came to mind, a dull centrepiece surrounded by a corona of drugs, knives, alcohol, and a good few other things this kid shouldn’t get hands or eyes on. Lukas, of course, no longer came under the banner of ‘sheltered child’ with Jack, if he ever had.

‘ _And whenever. Only thing I’ll ask is that you don’t go under the kitchen sink, that’s me and Jack’s stuff, not food or anything. Other than that, make yourself at home, and consider this an actual_ _home._ ’

The boy nodded slowly. “L—Lukas?” Lukas nodded. “Why aren’t you talking?”

Lukas grimaced and beckoned the boy over to the table. They’d need another chair, so for now Lukas let the boy have his and jumped up onto the counter. He rapped his knuckles against it, the surface coming up a little sticky, and when it drew Jack’s bleary eyes, he made a smoking gesture with his hands. Jack tossed him the rolling stuff without a word.

There’d been a few weeks before Matthias had gotten the address for them, and since then Lukas had gotten firmly into a smoking habit. When Jack had come out of the bedroom to find Lukas lounging at the table with a cigarette, he’d groaned, slumping back against the wall, and said, “Come on, kid, don’t make me parent you.”

And after receiving a few choice written words from Lukas, Jack had given in and told Lukas he could fuck off refusing to roll him _any_ cigarettes _ever_ again, that was for damn sure. He’d had a few charms for it in the end too, although he didn’t use many of them on himself, and Lukas already had the works on him, so there’d been no need to worry there as well. Jack would put some on Harry too as soon as his brain was functioning.

Smiling at the memory, Lukas rolled two cigarettes and passed one back to Jack when it was lit. A moment of quiet filled the flat. Gulls gabbered up on the roof and traffic grumbled past, but to Lukas, that was silence. The background of life overlaid only by his rustling breath and the whir of the failing heating. For a moment, he breathed it in, eyes fluttering closed and wrapped up in the scent of cigarette smoke and ground coffee, but as ground coffee always meant, Jack hit the button on the machine and with a wail of protest, it came to life.

End of quiet moment. Lukas took a long drag and picked up his pen.

‘ _Would you like a drink? Tea? Coffee?’_ Lukas was about to hold up the notepad, words written much larger to account for the distance and the way the boy had squinted at them earlier, but he paused and added a word. _‘Juice?’_ Jack did keep some in, but it wasn’t drunk frequently. Usually wound up with Jack picking it up to take a swig then gagging the whole mouthful out into the sink and binning the bottle of mouldy liquid.

“Um, could I have some juice, please?” The boy still sounded shy and uncertain, but he’d warm up. Lukas rapped the counter again and pointed between the boy and the fridge. Jack glowered at him but got the juice anyway. The orange liquid sloshed about in the glass as he set it on the table in front of the boy with a clunk.

The motion brought a flash of imagery back to Lukas. The careful way Jack had set a glass of water in front of him the first day he’d come to live here. It drew a smile to his lips and a warmth in his chest while he started writing a short explanation. He tore the finished page off and set in front of the boy for him to read at his leisure

‘ _After I left you, some weird things happened to me, and most of them weren’t so nice. The ‘not talking’ thing started unintentionally but a lot of things happened since then that made me not want to talk. I don’t like it, so I don’t. Are you okay with me just writing notes to you like this?_ ’

The boy took a lot longer over reading than Jack did, but when he finished, he looked up with those wide eyes again. The messy hair and the round glasses gave him a real innocent look, nothing like Lukas. The way his clothes completely dwarfed him just made him look younger, and those bright green eyes completed the look nicely.

He would have made a good tool for stealing and begging and pickpocketing, the perfect distraction or enticement. It was a shame the boy hadn’t been stuck out there with him.

“I don’t mind at all!” the boy exclaimed.

Lukas grinned and gave him a thumbs up, which made the boy giggle.

The grind of the coffee machine came to a blessed halt, and Jack handed one of the cups to Lukas before collapsing on his chair with his own. The boy’s face shuttered off in a snap, eyes cast down at the table. Lukas scribbled a note and handed it to Jack to slide over. ‘ _Please don’t be scared of Jack. He’s harmless, really. He’s looked after me for a couple of years now and he’s nothing like them_.’

The boy glanced up from under his long fringe and met Jack’s eyes. Thankfully, Jack didn’t smile. Some sappy bit of Lukas that existed in a sliver entirely for Jack would probably say it was the best smile he’d ever seen, but that was Lukas, and more than likely it’d just scare the boy.

Jack settled on giving the boy the same thumbs up as Lukas did, and put on a friendlier expression while he did so. It worked and the boy smiled sunnily. He was a trusting thing, really; it was sort of nice.

“Do you have any cereal?” the boy asked after a minute. It came out a bit bolder, but not enough to cheer about.

“Cupboard above the kettle,” Jack said before Lukas could indicate. “Milk in the fridge. Help yourself then chuck ‘em here when you’re done.”

The boy bounced up out of his chair and Lukas raised his eyebrows when Jack glanced in his direction. He must really be feeling tired. Jack yawned and gulped down more of his coffee, as if to confirm Lukas’s thoughts. The boy came back with the cereal – cheerios – and Jack poured some into his bowl and doused it with an obscenely large helping of milk. Halfway through pouring it, his eyes seemed to glaze, and Lukas sniggered into his hand when Jack started and jerked the carton upward, scowling at his drowning breakfast

Both of them dug in. The boy’s hair hung too long in his face, and he brushed his fringe back as he took his first mouthful, exposing a thick, jagged scar on his forehead in the shape lightning bolt. It was a strange—

A bang echoed around the kitchen. Jack spit his mouthful of coffee over his cereal, then knocked the whole damn bowl over when he slammed the mug down spilling milk and tiny multigrain rings and more fucking coffee all over the table. Then he just sat there, coughing and staring with big old saucer eyes and a hanging mouth like Casper the goddamn Friendly Ghost had just line-danced across the kitchen.

The boy whimpered slightly, and Lukas gaped.

“You—” Jack choked on the word. His eyes flashed up to Lukas, the whites showing stark against the insomniac bruises that cradled them and he lifted his hands, gesturing wildly across the table at the shivering boy. “He—You brought _Harry fucking Potter_ to my flat for fucking breakfast! Lucky, what the fuck?”

Lukas shook his head and scowled, pen scrawling across the page ‘“ _Jack, what the fuck?” How the fuck do you know who he is? And what the fuck kind of reaction was that?!_ ’

Jack jumped up out of his seat, the distress coming off him so effusively it almost felt tangible. He looked so stricken Lukas had to struggle not to burst into laughter. “He’s Harry Potter! What did you expect me to do? Just fucking sit here?”

‘ _WHO IS HARRY POTTER?_ ’

Jack pointed wildly. “He is!”

‘ _I gathered that_.’

Under the continued barbs of Lukas’s icy glare, Jack grimaced and sat himself down, but the little incredulous glances he sent at the boy only made Lukas want to laugh more. The boy – Harry, Lukas supposed. The name seemed to fit in his head. Harry’s features were all splayed out in bewilderment and he hunched down as if he could hide behind his cereal bowl.

What a goddamn scene. At least it looked like something interesting was going on. Maybe it had been worth getting the boy after all. Lukas gave Jack one more look and wrote out a note.

‘ _I would like you to tell me, or us rather as Harry seems just as confused as I do, three things. Those things are: (1) How do you know his name is Harry Potter? (2) Who is Harry Potter? – Don’t you dare give me a stupid answer to that – and (3) Why you reacted like someone sat Pamela Anderson down in front of you? Also, clean the table._ ’ Lukas tore this note off too and handed it to Jack. He read through it with a growing grimace until he reached the last bit then—

“Hey, come on, I’d be way more googly eyes if fuckin’ Pamela Anderson sat at my table looking like she’s gotta first thing in the morning.”

Lukas winked and stuck out his tongue, and Jack gave him the finger before turning back to Harry, putting on his serious face.

“I’m sorry, kid,” he said to Harry when he’d finished reading. “You surprised me, is all. I really wasn’t expecting to see you here of all places. Got nothing against you.”

Harry nodded slowly. “Okay, I’m sorry for surprising you…”

“Nah, don’t be. My fault for acting like an idiot. I’m gonna surprise you now, anyway, so we’re even. Watch this.” Jack leant over to fish his wand out of the drawer. Harry Potter must be of wizarding importance or Jack wouldn’t be showing him magic so readily.

One flick of his wand the entire mess vanished. Harry jumped up out of his seat and gasped, doing a good imitation of Jack earlier. He even pointed at the clean (clean-ish) table.

“How did you do that?!”

Jack chucked his wand to Lukas, who put it back in the drawer. “Magic. No, seriously,” he added when Harry started to frown, clearly thinking he’d been made fun of, “straight up magic. I’m not bullshitting you.”

Lukas held out his notepad with the note he’d started writing as soon as Jack got his wand out. ‘ _I’ll write you an explanation later, I promise. All you need to know immediately, I think, is that Jack and I – and you, I expect – can all do that, or at least we’ll learn. We’re wizards and there’s a big community of people who can as well. Now, Jack is going to explain why he was so surprised by you_.’

“Fucking hell,” Jack groaned, “where do I even start?”

‘ _How you know he’s Harry Potter? You saved me some work remembering his name._ ’ Lukas was careful to show that note just to Jack, then he flipped the page over once Jack had finished.

“It’s the scar.” Jack tapped his forehead. “Ain’t no wizarding person who don’t know Harry Potter’s got that scar, even me and I’m _years_ out of the loop.”

“M—My scar?” Harry asked hesitantly. “But I got it—"

“Look, kid, I don’t know nothing about them muggles you live with, but I sure as fuck know people like that and what they’ve told you about that scar is gonna be bullshit. The story of how you got that is famous, except I’ve got some, uh … inside information that’d suggest some of that is bullshit too. So…” Jack’s voice trailed off, his features tightening as his eyes drifted around the room, until with a groan, he dragged his fingers back through his hair and turned to Lukas. “Look—I mean, I’m like half-fucking-dead right now, can I tell the whole story later? It’s _long._ ”

Lukas grinned. ‘ _Alright, short version._ _Do you mind, Harry?_ ’

Harry, with a certain tightness around his lips, shook his head. Of course he’d mind, but he’d be compliant enough being new here not to complain.

“Thank fuck.” Jack started at his own swearing. “Uh, I mean god. Thank god, right?” A helpless look flashed to Lukas, who just laughed. “Don’t be a little twat. Put me another coffee on, huh?”

‘ _No, I want to hear first._ ’

A grudging smile twitched at Jack’s lips as he slumped in his chair. “So you’re gonna be a little twat, huh? Fine. You remember me telling you about the Dark Lord, right? Voldemort?”

 _Voldemort?_ Jack had never mentioned his name before _._ Why did that sound familiar? Lukas nodded anyway, and wrote a brief explanation of what Jack had told him about the war while Jack talked – a story about the Dark Lord going off the deep end and trying to put a Killing Curse on a toddler, and getting bitch-slapped by some kind of backblow magic in the process.

Jack kept it very vague, and it looked like that alone took more of his mental energy than just a story would’ve done, but considering he _was_ keeping it vague, Lukas had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t a story that’d reflect favourably on the Dark Lord. A tight sort of frustration grew on Harry’s face while Jack mumbled around the story, but it broke into splayed disbelief when Jack concluded with Harry being famous for ending the wizarding war and killing the Dark Lord.

It was a lot, that was for sure. Both Harry and Lukas sat blinking at Jack for a long moment, but god knew the boy wouldn’t be thinking anything like Lukas was. _Disappointment_ was prominent. The Dark Lord – offed without even being able to kill a baby.

Lukas snorted and scrawled out a note.

‘ _You’re telling me they think a baby killed the Great and Terrible Dark Lord?_’

“Stupid, ain’t it?” Jack said to Lukas, then turned back to Harry. “Don’t want to burst any bubbles that might be forming, kid, but I’m like ninety percent sure that one of your parents or Old Man Greater-Good worked some magic that killed him. Or got rid of him at least. I don’t think he’s really dead. Either that or his magic and – I dunno – soul were so unstable something else happened to him. Whatever it was, you ain’t some blessed child-saviour like the wizarding world likes to think. Just remember all that when you go back, huh? You might be famous, but I reckon it’s someone else who should be.”

Harry gave a sombre nod. “I will.”

How cute. He really was taking to Jack already.

“Now,” Jack said loudly, freeing one of his arms from their lazy cross to wave his finger at Harry, “I’d _also_ like to make something very clear to you. Like, you’re _gonna_ go back to the wizarding world and when you do, some of them gossiping fuck—” Jack hissed, biting off the curse. “Ah, shit—I mean f— _shit_ , you know what I mean. Someone’s gonna tell you a story about a man called Sirius Black, and _I_ am eventually gonna tell you a long story about why that whole story is total bullshit, but that’s for another day, huh?”

Sirius Black. Lukas’s father.

Oh, he’d heard the whole story. The betrayal and the false imprisonment, but he hadn’t realised it was related to _Harry._ Looked like his ‘father’ had gotten Lukas in bad books before he even went near anything magical though, no matter the truth. Great.

“So,” Jack said to Lukas, “that enough then?”

‘ _You’re in the clear. Is he famous then?_ ’

“Probably the most legendary figure in the wizarding world right now. Like, I mean I _guess_ things might have died down a _tiny_ bit since I left...”

Lukas pulled a face.

“Yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd just like to make a note on how I'm treating this 'locked memories' business. A lot of amnesia patients still function at the same maturity level with the same executive functions as before they lost their memories, so Lukas, when whatever happened to him happened, has not reverted to a squalling baby. He just doesn't remember events.


	5. Confessions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lukas & Jack discuss magical schools and the role of Albus Dumbledore, and Jack finally asks Lukas why he doesn't speak.

That night, once Jack and Lukas had retreated into the bedroom, leaving Harry fast asleep on his new sofa bed, Lukas finally had a chance to ask the questions that had been buzzing in his head all day. They’d gone shopping earlier. Harry whizzed around the different stores, eventually having accepted his large budget, so they’d been alone most of the time, but Lukas wanted to wait until the conversation got the space it deserved.

They’d bought Harry a small set of new clothes and a couple of toys, and later, they’d bought big chest of drawers to go in the main room of the flat for Harry to keep all his things, along with the new sofa bed, another kitchen chair, and an armchair. Everything had been bought second- or third-hand but Jack still had a distinct grimace on his face when he counted the cash left in his wallet while they drove home in the van they’d borrowed off Kev.

Sitting on the bed with the duvet a puddle of duck-egg blue around his legs and tucked over his shoulders, Lukas showed Jack the note with his question.

‘ _So, I think you know exactly why the Dark Lord went to kill Harry_.’

A long while ago now, Jack had told Lukas about the Death Eaters and the Dark Lord. For the whole conversation, there’d been a kind of tautness to his face, as if he expected one of the words he mumbled to mark the breaking point where Lukas would scream and run and never look back, denounce him as evil and a scourge on the world. He’d been wrong, of course. Lukas didn’t care. The only reason Lukas wouldn’t have wound up in the ranks himself if he’d lived in Jack’s time would’ve been rejection of a mark of servitude to some mere _man._

Not now, but one day Lukas would be powerful enough that he’d never exist beneath someone’s thumb again.

Jack, who was stretched out on his back with the duvet up to his stomach and one arm crossed behind his head, grinned sheepishly. “I do know a bit more than I told him.”

‘ _I suppose it’s all inside information that you couldn’t possibly have known? Tell me._ ’

“Alright. First things, you gotta accept prophecies and divination are unreliable but existing fields of magic.” Lukas made a face and Jack laughed. “That’s how most people feel about it, don’t worry, but prophecies do come true a lot, usually because people tried to stop shit happening and all that fairy-tale nonsense. One of the guys in our circle, a guy named Severus Snape, overheard a prophecy and relayed it to the Dark Lord. I don’t know the prophecy, only that it existed and that the Dark Lord decided it meant Harry.

“So ol’ Sevvie reckoned he was in love with Harry’s mother – like you don’t wanna _know_ how much I watched that guy mope over here, jeez – but yeah, so he decided to ask a favour from the Dark Lord seeing as he brought him the prophecy. The Dark Lord agreed – he did like them lot – and Snape asked him not to kill Lily Potter. Didn’t give a shit about Harry and his dad – just don’t kill Lily. The Dark Lord said he wouldn’t kill her so long as she didn’t get in the way. I bet you can guess what happened next.”

‘ _She refused to give up her son, the Dark Lord killed her, and you think something she did protected him?_ ’

A big grin full of pride spread across Jack’s face and Lukas found himself smiling back, a fuzzy warmth in his chest. “Bingo. No one knows what actually went down, but I seriously don’t think the kid did anything. He was like one, for fuck’s sake.”

Well, that was all very tragic, almost made him want to steal the boy away entirely. Unfortunately, it sounded like people would notice if he disappeared. Lukas didn’t know anything about magic, but he bet there were ways to find people with it.

Damn, it really was about time he _stopped_ not knowing about things.

‘ _I need to know more about magic. I guess I’ll end up involved in this whether I want to be or not, so I want to know as much as I possibly can before then. I need some books. I need lots of books._ ’

“Yeah, you probably would’ve to be fair. You know I mentioned a place called Hogwarts? I must have at some point…”

Lukas shrugged. Jack might’ve. The name sounded familiar.

“Well, it’s a school, basically. Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry.” Lukas snickered at the pompous tone Jack put on. “They’d like you to think it’s the _only_ school and if not that then the best one, but it’s just the one that happens to be in Britain. It’s good, but I reckon Durmstrang is better, especially for dark-inclined people, like us.”

‘ _I suppose I have to go then_.’

Jack laughed. “’Course you don’t! You ain’t gotta go, so long as you’re getting some kind of education and fuck knows you’ve already like vanished from the grid, but look me in the eyes, kid, and tell me you’re gonna turn down a learning opportunity.”

Lukas shook his head. He never would.

“I can sort something out and get you into Durmstrang, if you like. I’m sure I’ve got some, uh, strings I could pull. Your mum’s family are from Denmark so you might even get a letter.”

‘ _Harry will be going to Hogwarts?_ ’

“Yeah, I can’t do shit about that, not unless he turns it down himself, but Dumbledore will poke his nose into it and that’s too dangerous for me.”

‘ _Dumbledore?_ ’’

“Albus Dumbledore, really powerful light wizard. Like, there were two people in the world who could stand up to the Dark Lord, and that were Mik and Dumbledore.”

That was a slip. Jack always called Lukas’s uncle Mikael, but Mik – the odd sounding nickname capturing that initial Scandinavian syllable – nestled on his tongue like a long dead friend. Did Jack know him better than he made out?

For now, Lukas didn’t press. Jack didn’t seem to have noticed. ‘ _Well, if Harry’s going I might as well go too and keep an eye on him. You can cover the darker side of my education_.’

“Uh huh, sure thing. Y’know, talking about the old goat got me remembering. You know I disappeared upstairs last night?” Lukas nodded. “Well, I was having a nose about – y’know left a persuasive note with some dollar that should stop the Dursleys even thinking about telling anyone Harry’s gone missing. Reckon they’ll just bullshit about it to anyone that comes ‘round anyway though, ‘cause I found this note in a dresser that gives them a fucking wedge a month for keeping Harry with them, and considering the shit treatment he got, I bet they had a lot spare. They ain’t gonna want anyone knowing they don’t have him anymore or that cuts right off.”

A pulse tightened at the base of Lukas’s skull, rooting up through his brain and sinking in behind his eyes like a headache. A familiar one, lit by the filament glare that dangled in a cupboard beneath the stairs _._

The feeling didn’t build any further. Lukas rolled it over his tongue, and with a twitch of his shoulders, a shrug to himself, he wrote a note. ‘ _That’s good news. What’s it got to do with Dumbledore though?_ ’

Sometimes he even surprised himself with how little he felt.

The smirk that curved Jack’s lips told all. “Who do you think sent the note? It’s why I wouldn’t use any magic. Old fuck’s probably got wards all over the place, knowing him.”

A loud groan broke from Lukas’s throat. Like most of the rare noises that came out of Lukas, it startled Jack. His eyes flew up to Lukas’s face, and a grin already twitched his lips as Lukas held up a hand and scribbled out a note. ‘ _I don’t even know what wards are. I need to learn some stuff ASAP._ ’

“Yeah, fuckin’ right you do. Still can’t believe it took you so long to start biting my goddamn hand off for it.”

Lukas stuck up his middle finger and Jack laughed.

They threw some ideas back and forth for a little longer until the conversation petered off to yawns and long silences and Lukas misspelling words. With heavy eyelids and sleep lurking in his bones, Lukas shuffled to the edge of the bed, ready to put the light out, but Jack called him back. The call came quick and abrupt, as if it spat from Jack’s tongue without him quite meaning it. Lukas frowned but sat back down.

Jack propped up on his elbow now and turned to look at Lukas. The light from above cast a warm glow on the high points of his brow and cheekbones, and the freckles there danced like little stars. A shame that a slow frown drew his brows together and interrupted the carefree way they could have capered around his face.

“Sorry,” Jack sighed, “I just…” His fingers tugged through the side of his hair, catching on the knots and old gel. “Can I ask you something, kid?”

Great. They were being serious. ‘ _Ask, though I may not answer_.’

“Why _don’t_ you talk? You—I’ve never asked before, and you’ve never told me.”

Lukas thinned his lips. Did he want to answer that? Obviously, Jack was asking for a better explanation than the one he gave Harry. He sort of … God, he sort of _wanted_ to tell Jack. The nightmares, the memories, the little nails in his life – it all sat heavy on him. Sometimes, it left him behind – like he was normal, like he didn’t have rot lurking beneath his skin – but when it came back…

Jack cared. Imagine being able to turn to him, not for help but just to know that he _knew_ and that he wouldn’t judge, because of course he wouldn’t. He was Jack.

Lukas raised a single finger and set pen to paper. Stuttering, he fumbled through the words and no matter how … bland he twisted it, his breath caught in his chest and something on his skin _crawled._ Beneath it. Little bugs worming through his veins and gnawing at his tongue. The _wrong_ of it.

But it’d be less wrong when he told Jack, wouldn’t it? When Lukas had to stop, pen hovering blind above the page and each breath a torture to force out his lungs, Jack didn’t speak. The grey of his eyes seemed to dance beneath the puckered frown while he watched Lukas, pale freckles all speckled across paler skin, and his sharp lips pursed, the rough chapped skin pressed together to overwhelm what was still pretty and untouched by the weather. His whole body leant toward Lukas, hand outstretched across the bed, but he didn’t touch. Didn’t speak. Only waited, his steady breaths the metronome for Lukas to cling to.

It was Jack. It was okay.

‘ _I told you that on that day in the alley, I didn’t know if I could speak. I wanted to test it out on my own but for some reason, I was scared that I’d try and nothing but a squeak or a rasp would come out. I didn’t know if I was even born with the ability to speak - at this point I wasn’t sure if I’d even been born at all – and I didn’t know if I’d lost it some other way, and so weeks went by and no one really expected me to talk to them on the streets so I never said anything at all._

_‘Two months later, and the first, and only, man I talked to kidnapped me and did really bad things to me._

_‘I’d been trying to rob a shop. It was early days and I still had no idea how to do it. The shopkeeper caught me with a loaf of bread and some sausages under my coat and took me into the back room until the police arrived. If I’d been lucky, he would have actually called the police. They would’ve put me in juvy or in an orphanage, and my life might’ve got better – except I wouldn’t be here right now – but when he started questioning me on my parents and I wouldn’t reply, he must have guessed that I wouldn’t answer because I didn’t have any. He looked sympathetic, which I didn’t like much, but he looked friendly and kind too. He said it was okay, that his parents died too and asked if I had somewhere safe to stay. I still remember the last bit, he said, “It’s okay, you can talk to me.”_

_‘I told him I didn’t; I was living on the streets. I remember smiling because I could speak, no matter how croaky my voice was, and I remember how quickly his expression changed. It almost seemed to slip off his face like oil. The new one made me sick, and that was that._

_‘He kept me for two months, locked up in his house. And it was horrible. I got these rope burn scars from being tied up so much, and I don’t think I need to tell you everything else he did._

_‘He almost killed me at the end. It was … for hours, he paced around ranting and kept coming back and half-choking me then running off again. I guess he decided he couldn’t do it, and no one would believe a little street urchin like me if I ever went to the police anyway, so he let me go. I knew that too and I never did._

_‘That’s why I don’t speak._ ’

Jack read through it three times and his face seemed to grow more expressionless each pass. The only thing that gave him away was the paper crumpling under his tightening grip. After the third time, he handed the page back to Lukas, got up, and walked out of the room.

Lukas’s mouth dropped open as he watched him go. Oh, he’d thought he could trust Jack, had he? Stupid. Stupid, stupid, _stupid._ A vice tightened around his skull, his chest, fracturing bone and rupturing flesh, and he choked. Couldn’t breathe. Just left. Just like that. Without a single word. Without even fucking _looking_ at him.

It was all too much.

His skull hammered. A stinging budded at his eyes and he couldn’t _breathe._ Shouts and curses that he wouldn’t ever utter formed on his lips and tears welled in his eyes. He spilt all of that and Jack just _walked—_

A roar filled the tiny apartment, then a loud, splintering crash. Another thud, crunch, and the muted sound of something hard pattering onto the carpet, drowned by another howl of rage. Lukas scrambled off the bed. His foot caught as he sprinted out the door and he nearly catapulted himself into the lounge. In the dark, Jack pulled his fist back to punch another hole in the wall.

Lukas dashed over, grabbed Jack’s arm with both hands, and shoved him sideways. Jack staggered, turning to face Lukas, and the snarl on his face was savage and terrible. Lukas clapped both his hands onto Jack’s solid chest then slapped him across the face.

A look of bewilderment softened Jack’s features, and Lukas pointed at the gaping hole in the wall and drew a finger across his throat.

“I…” The fury rose on Jack’s face again, twisting his lips. “ _He—_ ”

Lukas slapped Jack again and shook his head. _No. Don’t you get angry. It’s not yours to be angry about._

“Lucky.” Instead of crimson rage, Jack’s face this time cooled into iron. His jaw set to stone, and the knuckles of his clenched fists shone white. “I’m gonna kill him.”

Lukas slapped him, shoved him backwards, hands planted high up on his bare chest. Jack nearly toppled this time, and Lukas jabbed a finger at him then pointed at the floor. Not waiting to see if Jack obeyed, he stalked back to the room and snatched up his notepad. His pen moved furiously across the page, scrawling out the words.

His palms smarted, the smacked skin pressing into the edges of the notebook in his trembling grip. The words on the page must have shuddered when he showed them to Jack.

‘ _Don’t you dare. He’s mine to kill. MINE. If you kill him, you take that away from me, and if you do that then I will kill you._’

It was the only thing he had left. The only thing he could clutch at that _somehow,_ someday he might steal back everything that had been torn away.

For a moment, the expression wiped off Jack’s face, a hanging jaw and not much else, but only a moment, a heartbeat, a breath, then it all crumpled into a misery so deep it punched the breath out of Lukas’s lungs.

Because Jack cared. It was all there: in the tears welling in his eyes, in the way his shoulders shook, in the hand lifted as if to take Lukas in his arms that fell just short.

“I’m sorry,” Jack murmured. “I’ll wait in the bedroom.”

Once Lukas nodded – a sharp movement as if it might hide the way his lips trembled – Jack trudged off. With his eyes squeezed closed, Lukas dropped to the floor and bowed his head. The hands he rubbed over his face pulled at his skin and pinched the bare excess into little rolls that stung. The sting was good. It shoved back the grip on his lungs and dragged the Lukas of thought back into the physical while right now, his mind floated about two foot above his head, panting in desperation as it looked down.

It was the pain. Always, always, the pain put him back together again.

Lukas’s eyes trailed to the kitchen, to the knife drawer, but the sight of Harry on the sofa arrested his feet before they could follow the trance.

The boy’s white face peered over the arm of the sofa, blankets a hood over his head. Crap. One step forward, there, and a ten-minute car ride back.

Lukas wrote his note in large letters and held the pad up. ‘ _I’m sorry. Jack gets a little angry on my behalf sometimes. He wouldn’t have hurt you, don’t worry.’_

“H—He…” Harry didn’t sound convinced. As his words trailed off, his eyes followed, drifting across to the side where… Lukas groaned. The bathroom door was missing, Only shards of wood clinging to the dangling hinges remained. Jack had evidently ripped it off the hinges and then … ah, chucked it across the room. The slice of light from the open bedroom door caught it where it slumped against the far wall, a wreckage, a ghost.

Lukas’s hand twitched, begging for a knife handle to grip. He settled for pressing his fingers so deep into the column of the pen that the edges made blades in his fingertips.

‘ _Go to sleep, Harry. Sorry for waking you._ ’

Harry nodded and slid back down out of sight. With a final sigh, Lukas returned to the bedroom and shut the door behind him.

The covers swallowed Jack in duck-egg blue up to his chest, his arms folded over the top. One hand twisted in the side of the hair and the other held the wrinkled page that Lukas had discarded on the bed. He didn’t seem to be reading so much as staring. His eyes didn’t move but he looked like he was absorbing something from the experience.

Shame the sight of it made Lukas’s gut twist. The words seemed to burn through the back of the page, searing memory across his brain. It was hard to keep his breath even as he teased the note from Jack’s fingers and, with a burst of magical heat, it turned to ash in his palm.

If only he could pull the memory out his skull and do the same.

Lukas slipped under the covers beside Jack, and they both shuffled around until they lay facing each other, just further than Jack’s arm’s reach apart. Lukas had claimed this side of the bed so that when he lay like this, he could write with his left hand.

‘ _I didn’t want that lying around._ ’

Jack nodded. “Fair enough.” 

No more words. All of Lukas’s mind was dedicated to forcing his lungs to expand and contract, to _breathe,_ and it made that time of silence and stillness pass as a blessing. He almost had his breathing working right when a movement from Jack drew his eyes – a hand reaching out.

He did it slowly, ponderously, such a care that there was no jerky, sudden movements that might make Lukas flinch away. Easy enough to see that was his intention, and that ridiculous frown on his face told Lukas just how much effort he made to do it.

Jack hadn’t known why before, but he’d always accepted that Lukas didn’t want to be touched. Usually, he just avoided any sort of ‘touchy’ gestures, so Lukas was wary but curious where this was going.

Just before the touch, the one that Lukas braced to flinch from, Jack’s fingers stopped. They hovered a breath away, so close that the brush of his fingers across Lukas’s cheekbone whispered there like a ghost, but it wasn’t _quite_ touching. Nothing more than an echo of displaced air. It was warm. Even not-touching, Jack exuded heat, and that heat made Lukas realise just how cold he’d always been. His eyes fluttered closed and a smile that echoed the swell of warmth in his chest spread across his lips. Hazy through the cage of Lukas’s eyelashes, Jack smiled too.

“I had no idea, y’know,” Jack murmured. “Not a fucking inkling. I never would have—”

Lukas shook his head, careful to move away from Jack’s touch and not toward it, and placed a finger against his lips. He tightened his grip on the pen that hung lax between his fingers. ‘ _That was the idea. I’m glad that you didn’t think that had happened to me. If I were that pitiful a creature that anyone could guess it, then I’d hate it. Don’t pity me, Jack. Please_.’

The soft smile that curved Jack’s lips took the edge of the stutter of Lukas’s heart. Or perhaps it was all the emotion filling his grey eyes with the same light of the sun diffuse in a soft cover of cloud. Not one of those was pity. Maybe one was even pride.

“Never,” Jack said, “I promise. You’re brave, kid. Not pitiful. Not by a long fucking stretch.” Slow, his fingers drawing back from Lukas’s face, Jack shook his head. “You ain’t really a kid in here, are you?” Jack tapped the side of his head. “Like I know you ain’t an adult, that’s stupid, but … not a kid either. You’ve never seemed like one, but now I guess it really wasn’t me being a piece of shit ignoring it.”

Lukas shrugged. Seeing Jack interact with Harry today had uncovered a … lack in the way he interacted with Lukas, but it also shone a light on everything _more_ in the way he did. And Lukas was glad of that. God knew how awkward it would have felt if Jack had _pandered_ to him that way. It made him realise that Harry had something that Lukas had always been missing being able to enjoy it.

‘ _I don’t know,’_ Lukas wrote to Jack, _‘I don’t remember what it feels like to be a child. I couldn’t tell you_.’

Smiling, Jack made the same feather-brush across Lukas’s outstretched hand. It made his heart clench up, but like … in a good way. The same way as when he’d realised Jack had saved him from his old creep of a boss. That he was _wanted_ enough for someone to try.

“Don’t matter.” Jack’s voice was rough and throaty with emotion, the same feeling that suffused his whole face and trembled in his fingers. “You got more than that that no one else is ever gonna have. You got strength that’s gonna make you fly, kiddo, just you wait.

“And…” Jack sighed, and the lowering mood made Lukas expect him to draw his hand back, but even though Jack’s eyes trailed off to the ceiling, the almost-touch stayed, “y’know, I think I owe you a story now, something I’ve been dodging around…”

‘ _Not now, Jack. I’m tired and feeling way too many emotions, and you’re being too emotional and if you start crying, I’m going to have to go sleep with Harry.’_

A laugh barked from Jack’s lips, his eyes flying up to Lukas’s face, and the shine in them said he was surprised by it. Gladdened. Grinning, Jack shook his head. “Not a fuckin’ kid for sure. Jeez, you’re cold, Lucky.”

Lukas stuck out his tongue, rubbing his face into the scratchy fabric of the pillowcase. It kinda smelt. Probably needed changing. ‘ _I want to hear. You’ve got to tell me now, but just … not right now. I want to sleep. My head hurts._’

Another laugh from Jack, this one low and soft and kind. “Alright.” He rolled onto his back, tucking one arm beneath his head and smiled as he looked back to Lukas beside him. “Goodnight, kid.”

Lukas waved his hand, blowing the single bulb that hung from the ceiling with a tiny surge of magic. Bulbs were cheaper than walls and doors, and Lukas knew neither of them wanted to get out of bed.

In the darkness, an urge rose in him. One that fought against the chains wrapped around the chest trapping his voice, and it fought hard enough that for just one moment, the lid popped open, just a crack. Lukas swallowed, whetting his throat, and whispered, “Goodnight, Jack.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope I'm building how deep the trust in Lukas & Jack's relationship goes here. Let me know what you think of them!
> 
> PS. Harry is very much going to be a side character, but he has important roles later due to who he knows rather than who he is. Bear with him, but don't expect dithering around the boy-who-lived business.


	6. The Hogwarts Committee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severus Snape brings around the Hogwarts letter, but someone forgot to tell Jack he's here on Hogwarts business instead of Death Eater business.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you got two phantom notifications from me, I'm a total disaster and pressed post instead of save as draft on two different chapters.

_1 9 9 0_

•─────⋅☾ ⋅ ☽⋅─────•

If there was one thing Lukas hadn’t expected when waiting for the Hogwarts committee to show up at his door, it was for them to be _late._

For the entire _two months_ since his Durmstrang letter had come and gone, Lukas spent the daytime hours pacing the tiny flat, chain-smoking and drinking far too much coffee. On the rare occasions Jack pried him from his vigil, he spent the outing chewing on his pen and glaring around the room or street as if a wizard might pop up and accost him about magical schools, then sigh in despair when he took in Lukas’s locale and company, assert that no magical boy could lurk this low and _leave_.

Every time he got home, he expected a little rabbit carrying a note or something, and that note would say ‘sorry we missed you, maybe next year’. Or at the very least, something saying that he'd have to wait even _longer._

Jack spent those same hours hurrying out of the room every time someone knocked, and Lukas had taken to keeping a note ready for the visitors. ‘ _Sorry, Jack owes Rat Joe some money. He's hiding in his room in case the boys had come round. I'll fetch him now.'_

Of course, when Rat Joe and his boys did come around, as Jack actually had owed them money, they were extremely courteous, and instead of knocking and getting Lukas’s hopes up, they just knocked the door down and stormed the flat.

The boys knocked Jack around while Rat Joe looted the house for what he was owed and a little on the side. Lukas sat on the coffee table, giddy with amusement and playing a few scenarios through his head of the Hogwarts teacher showing up while Rat Joe kicked Jack in the gut and how funny that would be. Really, he _had_ told Jack not to borrow the money, and he’d already hidden the most valuable things under the floor of Kev’s van anyway, so nothing was really at risk. They did lose the new TV, but Jack would steal another one.

Once it was done, Rat Joe had given Lukas fifty quid and a brand-new cap – which was actually pretty cool – then left with a grin and a swagger once he’d ruffled Lukas’s hair. And that was exactly why Lukas always liked the visits from Rat Joe and the boys.

Lukas and Jack had decided that it was too risky having anyone discover Harry living here. No, that wouldn’t have done at all, and it had been an easy decision to send Harry back to the Dursleys until Lukas’s letter arrived. Harry, as it’d turned out, was a year younger than Lukas, so his wouldn’t come until next year.

Of course, Lukas hadn't just _sent him back;_ he wasn't that callous. Or Jack wasn’t, rather. Jack had threatened the Dursleys into treating Harry perfectly well during his stay.

They’d made a couple of late-night check-ups as well. Harry slept comfortably in Dudley’s old toy room and reassured them that everything was fine, and perhaps could they ask the Dursleys _not_ to give him bacon for breakfast every morning, because it was a little much after a whole month of it.

Jack was _very_ good at threatening people into compliance.

Today, Jack had only just emerged from the bedroom when someone knocked.

His second mug of coffee sat half-empty on the table, and he stared at his tobacco with a zombie-eyes and a loose jaw. Last night had been a club night, so he’d gotten back at about seven in the morning. The comedown hell was etched into every sagging inch of his body. Lukas could have rolled the cigarette for him, but it was pretty amusing seeing Jack like this. The pure sorrow that slathered over his face when the knock sounded was just plain hilarious.

“Just tell them I'm not fucking here.” Jack barely managed to heave himself out of the chair, stumbling heavily as he found his feet. “Might just hide behind the fucking sofa.”

It wouldn’t have surprised Lukas if he did just that, but he managed to make the trip to the bedroom (and trip he did, several times). Lukas balanced his cigarette on top of the open flip knife Jack used to scrape out his grinder. Leaving the two coffee cups forlorn and alone, Lukas answered the door.

It was still broken from Rat Joe's visit. Jack hadn't wanted to fix it with magic in case someone noticed, so instead, as the door still hung on at the lock, they'd used Harry's chair to wedge it shut. The fragmented wood by the lock made a good replacement for the busted hinges.

Of course, because it was so _obviously_ another one of Jack’s friends or someone for work – probably Kev asking about the blood that got on his van last time – Lukas almost dropped the notepad he was holding when it _wasn’t._

Lukas recognised the man. A year or two ago, Jack had found an old picture at the back of his cluttered drawers. A wizarding photo, but it wasn’t the first of the kind Lukas had seen so he hadn’t been surprised when the figures had all shifted around. Jack had been front and centre, grinning widely with his arm around a brunette’s shoulder, but the grin had looked sliced from another face and pasted on Jack’s without a care for how strange it looked there.

A sickly cast haunted his features, worse by far than when Lukas had first met him, with hollow cheeks echoed in the scrawny lines of his figure beneath shabby clothes. Something half-mad lurked behind his eyes, and his smile had a brittle edge. It only didn’t rip Lukas’s pitiful little heart out entirely because right then, at least, Jack did look happy, even if it seemed like the happiness of a man that didn’t live in that skull.

The Dark Lord had been in the photo too, a man with a cruelly handsome face and exhaustion etched beneath his eyes and through his tight, unsmiling lips. So had Lukas’s uncle, Mikael Valrssen, although in the sepia picture, his eyes – Lukas’s eyes, Jack had said – were just another shade of beige.

Lined up at the back of the picture had been the man who stood in the doorway. Where time had been a blessing to Jack, to this man, it had weighed years upon him far beyond his share. His hair was greasy and lank where it had been thick and lustrous in the photo. His skin was sallow, and his expression was sour.

Severus Snape, that was the man at the door. He frowned at a spot about a foot above Lukas’s head for a moment, as if he’d expected someone taller to answer. When Snape finally looked down, his eyes caught Lukas’s and flew wide. Was that… Lukas’s fingers twitched, pulled back from their instinct to brush beneath his eyes. Snape knew Mikael Valrssen, didn’t he? He’d have to get coloured contacts when he went to Hogwarts at this rate.

 _If_ he went to Hogwarts _._

Lukas gave the man a quick up and down – Snape played the muggle well, not even considering what Jack had told him about most wizards – and crooked a finger as he stepped aside, beckoning Snape in.

Once the chair was in place again, securing the door, Lukas gestured Snape over to the sofa while he wrote a quick note on his pad. The man hovered around centre of the room, at attempt at disdainful nonchalance in his posture while he looked around the flat with a distinct wrinkle to his nose and a sneer forming on his lips. After being pointed to the sofa, he gave Lukas a look of disbelief, but when he was offered no other seating, he perched primly on the edge of the cleaner cushion.

Lukas cleared his throat to get Snape’s attention and held up the note. ‘ _He’s in the bedroom. I’ll fetch him now.’_

Snape only gave the note a quick once over, and Lukas felt his eye twitch when the man said, “Yes, if you’d tell him I’m here to see him.”

Lukas had to clear his throat twice to get Snape’s attention again. ‘ _Yes, I did say I’d do that._ ’

“Thank you, boy.”

Usually he’d write a tart note telling Snape his name was Lukas and _not_ boy, but he’d probably have to wave the pad in front of the man’s face to get his attention. Not to mention the tartness never actually came across when he wrote it. With irritation thick beneath his tongue, Lukas slipped into the bedroom.

Sunlight slashed brilliantly across the room, illuminating Jack’s bare skin with a bright white glow. He was still in his boxers and the sheets, unneeded in the August heat, were piled up at the bottom of the bed. Two pillows sandwiched his head, and it looked as if he’d gone back to sleep.

Smiling faintly at Jack’s sprawled position, Lukas rapped his knuckles against the wall. Not asleep then, as Jack groaned and curled up on his side, peering at Lukas through one bleary eye. “What’s up, kid?” The pillow still half-covering his face muffled his voice. “Didn’t I say don’t tell them I’m here?”

Lukas sat on the edge of the bed. He wrote entirely in the strange enigmatic shorthand he’d been easing into over the past few years. Jack would never learn a new language if Lukas just _told_ him to, so Lukas had _acclimatised_ him to it. It worked, and right now, the note would be nothing but a mess of symbols to anyone but Jack, and somewhat Harry. Just how Lukas liked it.

‘ _Severus Snape’s at the door. I thought you might want to see him. I can tell him to fuck off and come back later if you like._ ’

“Wha—" Jack propped himself up on his elbow, the pillow flopping off his head, and rubbed at his eyes. “Sevs? What the fuck is he doing here?” Lukas shrugged. “Fuck me, I haven’t seen him since the end of the war. Yeah, yeah, go on, I’ll get up. Tell him I’ll be out in a minute. And roll me a fag, would you?”

Lukas nodded and withdrew to the living room. Snape stood beside the bookshelf, finger tapping each of the spines in turn. Lukas crept across the room, his footsteps silent on the threadbare carpet, and he managed to squeeze into his chair at the table without scraping it backwards. Snape only turned around when Jack started knocking about in his room, getting ready. Dickhead actually jumped when he spotted Lukas at the kitchen table, rolling a cigarette.

“When—" Gritting his teeth, Snape gave a short shake of his head, light squirming across the greasy locks, and squared his shoulders. “Where is—"

Lukas held up a finger, cutting Snape off, and pointed at the bedroom. Snape’s lips thinned.

“Will he be long?”

Lukas shrugged, sealing the roll with his tongue. He smirked as Snape clenched his jaw. That’s what the asshole got for being inconsiderate. As Lukas tapped the cigarette on the table, Snape took another step forward.

“I’m on a tight schedule, boy. How long will he be?”

Lukas scribbled a note, and Snape walked over to the table when Lukas held it up. ‘ _Who can say? He doesn’t half mince when he’s getting ready._ ’

Snape glanced briefly at it before something unpleasant drew his lips back from the crooked yellow tombstones of his teeth. ‘Read’ was definitely too strong a verb. “Answer me, boy!”

Lukas threw the pad on the table beside the knife and rubbed his hands over his face, squeezing his eyes shut. This guy might’ve been Jack’s friend, but god-fucking- _damn_ , he was frustrating. Lukas felt around on the table for the ashtray and snatched up his mostly unsmoked cigarette when he found it.

“Boy…” Snape’s voice was a silky growl. “ _Speak_. Answer me!”

Lukas didn’t even bother to look up. A pinch of smoky char brushed his nose as he leant back and relit his cigarette. A cloud of smoke drifted across the table in a soft brush of grey.

Then Snape snatched it from between his fingers and ground it into the ashtray until it was little more than a crumpled mash of paper. The tips of his fingers came away smudged grey with old ash, and a little speckled the dull blade of the flipknife.

_For fuck’s sake._

“You aren’t old enough to smoke, and I won’t witness that filthy—What in Merlin’s name are you doing, boy?” Lukas glanced up at him, the cigarette he’d rolled for Jack between his lips, and shrugged. While he sparked the lighter again, he took a moment to commit that look on Snape’s face to a special place in his memory. It really was a thing of beauty that snarl, complete with crooked yellow teeth and a rutted landscape of wrinkles.

Lukas took a drag, and this time when Snape’s hand shot out, Lukas was much quicker. He’d been practicing, and if he said so himself, by now he was least semi-deadly. Usually because he was quick enough to get the first move in, but like Jack always told him and never practiced himself – _you gotta take pride in them things you’re good at, kiddo._

The knife from the table glinted in the sunlight between Snape’s hand and Lukas’s cigarette, brightness oozing from the razor-edge. Snape, to his credit, didn’t drive his hand straight into it while trying to grab the cigarette. A shame. Lukas bet he’d be _hilarious_ bitching about that while his hand was stuck on the blade. Instead, his hand just … hovered there. Poised like a snake waiting to strike the moment Lukas’s steady hold dipped. Lukas held Snape’s malignant black eyes and shook his head slowly.

That, of course, was the sight Jack walked in on. Snape looked like every inch of his energy was focussed in a pinpoint torrent of silently fuming rage on the cigarette between Lukas’s lips, so much that he didn’t even react to the wink Lukas tipped Jack. For his part, Jack stood in the bedroom doorway looking utterly bewildered.

Lukas jabbed with his knife and Snape’s hand jerked back a little further – not completely away, but far enough that Lukas could take another drag.

“Boy,” Snape hissed.

“Oi, Sevs, leave him be.” Snape whirled around as soon as the rough drawl of Jack’s voice cut through the air, but when he _saw_ Jack, he froze, all the sagging lines of his face going slack. Jack chuckled and scratched the back of his neck, the skull and serpent tattoo sickly on his bare forearm. “Lucky does what he likes. Ain’t no way to stop him.”

Snape’s head snapped back around. “ _You’re_ Lukas Black?” Lukas nodded. Was it that big a deal? “Do you know who this man is?” Snape whipped out his wand, the end spearing toward Jack. _What the hell? Didn’t he come to see Jack?_ “Well, boy? Are you stupid? Deaf? Answer—”

“Fucking hell!” The shout drew Snape’s renewed aggression and Jack held up his hands. “Jeez, man, leave him be. He’s not fucking stupid. He can hear you. Kid just doesn’t talk. Now why the fuck are you pointing your wand at me?”

“Because, Malfoy, you are a dangerous fugitive living with a muggleborn student. I suggest you turn around so I can bind your hands and I’m not forced to curse you.”

 _Oo-oh._ Alright, that changed things. A smile crawled onto Lukas’s lips while he glanced between Snape and Jack. The idle way Snape pinned Jack with the tip of his wand almost said _bored,_ but no matter that, Jack just stood there anyway. That tortured expression on his face said doing his best to comprehend the situation, but Lukas didn’t expect it was going very well. Idiot had about two brain cells to rub together right now.

Now what would be the best time to put his knife in Snape’s back? Perhaps he could grab the huge kitchen knife without anyone noticing him, that would be a little more threatening. Well, his visit from Hogwarts was more interesting than he’d been expecting.

“You’re a teacher?” Jack asked, eyebrows pulling further together.

 _And he finally gets it._ Lukas might have clapped, but right now Snape had forgotten him, and that was a blessing he wouldn’t throw away yet.

“Yes.” Snape gave a flick of his wand. “Turn around, Malfoy.”

At _Malfoy,_ a cringe shivered through Jack. The amusement soured on Lukas’s tongue. Time to intervene, and now, he had a much better idea. A tendril of his wandless curled out as Lukas slipped silent from the chair, the magic tugging open the cupboard under the sink and wrapping around the gun hidden at the back. Lukas kept it low to the ground, just clear of scraping across the lino, until it was right beside the chair. Then, quick and quiet as he could, he hopped up onto the chair and snatched the gun out of the air. It made a comforting weight in his hands as he squared it on Snape’s head, and the click as he cocked it snapped through the taut air.

Snape’s eyes went so wide Lukas thought they might pop out when he found himself face-to-face with the muzzle of the gun. “What in—"

“You know what that is, Sevs.” Jack scratched his fingers through the side of his hair and ambled forward a few steps, beckoning loosely with his finger. “Lucky can use it. Put your wand on the floor and kick it over to me. Dunno what the fuck is going on here, but we need a little chat, I reckon.”

“Boy." Snape’s hiss had lost the edge of control, no matter if his posture was still stiff and square, and hey, _finally,_ he talked to Lukas like he was slightly more than a stain on the hem of his shirt, even if it was that shitty babying tone people got when they didn’t know better than to treat him like a kid. “Put the gun down. Whatever this man has been telling you, it is a lie and he is _dangerous._ I’m trying to help you.”

Lukas snorted and glanced over at Jack, eyebrows raised. Jack chuckled and started edging towards the table.

“Kid knows who I am and what I’ve done, and I’m pretty sure he’d be telling you he doesn’t give a shit about it if his hands were free.” Lukas gave a decisive nod. That was exactly what he was thinking. “Yeah, he doesn’t give a shit. Don’t try the innocent kid schtick here, Sevs. Thought you could do better than that, huh?”

As he stepped onto the lino, Jack knocked his knuckles lightly against Lukas’s hip. “Good stance there, kiddo.” Lukas smiled, a little fuzzy warmth putting a little sweetness back into his mood. “Where’s my fag then?” Lukas put on a dramatic pout and sighed, shaking his head. Jack laughed, rapping his knuckles against Lukas’s hip again before he turned to Snape and beckoned with his hand. “Sevs, chuck me your fucking wand. Lucky can’t talk when he’s pointing a gun at you.”

Snape’s hand convulsed around his wand as his eyes darted around the room, searching for a way out of the situation that Lukas was near certain he wouldn’t find. One last frantic search, twisting entirely away from his focus on Jack now, but there was nothing, and with a hiss between his teeth, he dropped his wand on the ground, nostrils flaring to twin black caverns, and kicked it over to Jack.

“There ya go.” Jack picked up the wand and waggled it at Lukas. “Now you can tell me where my fag is.”

Lukas released the trigger and set the gun on the table. He relit his cigarette while Jack leant his forearms on the back of Lukas’s chair, leaning over his shoulder to read the note. ‘ _Asshole over there nicked mine and mashed it up. Smoking yours._ ’

Jack scowled at Snape. “Tobacco’s expensive, y’know.”

“You have a good excuse to drop the dirty habit then, Malfoy.”

That drew a flinch from Jack then. His hands, either side of Lukas’s face, closed to fists. “Stop fucking calling me that. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I wonder the same thing of you, Malfoy. I wonder what depraved inclinations led you to—" Snape broke off, his teeth grinding— “to…”

Again, the words died, and Snape’s eyes pressed closed, the wrinkles around them deepening to crevices. Lukas got pretty close to bursting with this supressed laughter when Snape smacked his thigh and let out a growl of frustration. “Damn you, Jack. I can’t do it. If it had been any of the others…”

Jack’s fists slackened, and like it was an instinct, one of them shifted closer to Lukas’s head, a finger curling just a breath short of his ear. The warmth tingled. “Oh, great, so you were being an asshole on purpose?”

“At least conjure a chair for me if you insist on keeping my wand.”

Jack looked like he wasn’t going to for a minute, and the one he conjured was the most uncomfortable-looking chairs Lukas had ever seen. Jack dropped in the chair opposite Lukas and glowered at Snape while the man sat primly on the seat.

“No tea, I suppose?” All the vitriol and ill temper had disappeared from Snape’s voice, leaving only an almost agreeably nasal tartness in his tone. Jack glared and Snape gave a dramatic sigh. “I apologise for my behaviour.”

“Your apology can fuck off until I get a decent explanation.”

Snape inclined his head. “Understandable. Do you want the short version or the long version? Make me a cup of tea while I talk to Jack, boy.”

 _This guy…_ Lukas picked up the gun and pointed it at Snape’s head again. A guffaw of laughter burst from Jack’s throat, and Lukas’s lips twitched, a grin fighting against the surly expression he wanted to keep. _Thanks, Jack._

“Before we do _anything,_ ” Jack said, “you gotta stop calling Lucky boy and ordering him around. Maybe he’s a kid, but he don’t half take after his uncle.”

A frown dallied in the lines around Snape’s brow. “His uncle? Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“’Course it is.” Jack picked up his old cup of coffee, tipping it as he made the allowance of, “Well, great-uncle I suppose, but you know what Mik was like.”

“I do, but Erebus wasn’t this boy’s great-uncle.”

Jack snorted behind the rim of his mug. “You’re here from Hogwarts, right?”

“Evidently.”

“Take a look at that letter you’ve got for him. It’ll have Mik’s nephew’s name on the front, middle names and all, I reckon. Then take a look at them eyes and tell me that ain’t Mik looking back at ya.”

Lukas’s jaw tightened and he took a deeper drag on his cigarette, letting the smoke cloud around his face. Jack did that sometimes. A slip, saying not that Lukas _looked_ like this great-uncle, but wording it as if Mikael lived behind Lukas’s face.

If he kept it up, it was going to get annoying very, very quickly.

For a moment, Snape _stared,_ those black eyes like knives cutting away Lukas’s skin until all that existed was the ghost that stole the mismatched pops of colour of Lukas’s eyes.

“Yes…” Snape said eventually. “I hadn’t wanted to believe it... Do you have proof?

Jack snorted. His cup banged on the table as he set it down. A swirl of sunlight slid around the top rim, broken only by the deep chip opposite the handle. “Stop being such an idiot, Sevs.”

“If that’s Anthea’s son then Albus has—"

“ _Albus?_ ” The name spluttered from Jack’s lips, and if he’d still been drinking that coffee, it would’ve spluttered right out with it. Jack put his elbows on the table, twisted to lean toward Snape, and with each word, his voice deepened to a growl. “You’re on first name terms with that bastard? The _cunt_ who killed Mik _twice_? What the fuck has happened to you? How could you even _think_ about—"

Snape’s voice made an icy blade slicing off the end of Jack’s words. “And how do you still loyally bear the mark of the man who killed Lily?”

“ _Fuck_ Lily.” Jack slapped the table and jabbed his finger at Snape. “She treated you like _shit—_ "

“And Erebus treated you like royalty?” Snape hissed. Interesting. “At least Lily never pretended—"

Well, if there was no more on Jack and Erebus, Lukas didn’t care. He banged his knuckles on the table, loud to cut through the brewing shouting match. The bruising knock smarted through his fingerbones. He pushed a note to Jack while they both stared at each other, unwilling anger bridling on their tongues.

‘ _Don’t get angry, he’s trying to be a dick. Find out the full story before you flip out and fuck it.’_

Lukas wrote another note in full longhand while Snape and Jack’s attentions were on him. ‘ _Now that that’s all sorted, why doesn’t Snape tell us why he’s here visiting me today? The whole story. That should explain enough_.’

“Yeah,” Jack said, his voice just a little grudging, “that should cover it. Fucking strange enough that you’re here to see Lucky – and y’know he _is_ Anthea’s kid, like I won’t go into it and all, but it ain’t just like … like y’know, me getting hung the fuck up on Mik. Just, like, trust me on that, yeah?

Like clockwork, Snape peered at Lukas’s eyes again. _At._ And nothing but the goddamn eyes like Lukas didn’t exist, apparently oblivious to him noticing like when every other _fucking_ person who thought they had a free invite to stare at him did it. The heterochromia didn’t warrant so many looks by itself. In fact, if it was just that, he’d probably get compliments about his ‘exotic’ eyes to go with it, but when people took a proper look at his right eye, they got uneasy.

It wasn’t _true_ white. If you looked closely, his iris was incredibly pale grey. Ash more than snow, but it was too close to white for people’s comfort. And if these really were _that much_ like Erebus’s eyes, it’d be worse in the wizarding world. Lukas scribbled a quick note to Jack. No way he could put up with people _staring_ like that.

‘ _Need to buy coloured contacts before Hogwarts. Remind me._ ’ He’d have weird eyes – it’d feel strange otherwise – but _different_ weird eyes.

Jack grinned. “Sure thing, kiddo.”

The words drew Snape’s gaze, and something in that sour face seemed to soften a little when he caught Jack’s expression. Compared to Jack’s old smile – the one in the picture and probably last one Snape had seen – this one was positively radiant. Even compared to the first, stiff grimace he’d given Lukas, it made a striking difference. Lukas found himself smiling in return.

Snape cleared his throat. Jack jumped out of his dozy grin, and that just made Lukas smile even more.

“You wanted to know how I came to be here?” Snape directed the question to Jack, turned enough away from Lukas that it was clearly _exclusion._ Apparently he still wasn’t worthy of attention. Did that mean Snape didn’t fully believe Jack? Possibly. That was probably better. “It is because I am currently teaching Potions at Hogwarts, and as the Head of Slytherin House and one of the only teachers even _vaguely_ competent enough to visit the muggle world, I was tasked with introducing muggleborns to the wizarding world. The—” A clench of his jaw, and then carefully, he pronounced, “ _Lukas_ was one of the students assigned to me by Albus.”

Nothing about Jack’s expression said he was pleased with that. The sneer curling his lip took no reservations in displaying that. “Uh huh, sure, but how did you wind up working for Old Man Greater-fucking-Bullshit anyway?”

Snape rolled his eyes at that nickname, but it remained good-natured. “You know the first part, Jack, I’m sure.”

Jack frowned. “What part’s that?”

“When I took the prophecy that I overheard to the Dark Lord and he deduced it referred to Lily’s son.”

 _Ah,_ Lukas knew about this. Jack had sat down at explained the whole lot of it to both of them once Harry had settled in properly, including the Dark Lord trying to kill Harry, and Jack made great job of painting it like neither side was at fault for Harry’s parents getting killed.

The prophecy part, and how he’d heard it, he went into a lot more with Lukas later that evening. Jack and a friend named Conan Searle had been – as he put it – getting cussed out by His Almighty Evil Nutjobness when Snape brought him the prophecy.

Jack said it with a blasé air, but the tremble in Jack’s hands as he’d kept scratching his fingers back through his hair, over and over and over, a repetitive motion verging on compulsion – that said to Lukas that ‘getting cussed out’ didn’t quite cover it.

“Awh _yeah_ , that thing.” Jack pulled a face. “I don’t like where this is going.”

Lukas didn’t much like it either.

“You’re most likely right.” Something close to a sigh breathed through Snape’s nasal voice. “I was concerned that the Dark Lord wouldn’t hold to his promise, frantic even, so I went to Albus and asked him to keep Lily safe in return for my loyalty.” The tight press of Jack’s lips said he was about to burst out with something venomous so Lukas tugged the baggy edge of his t-shirt and shook his head slightly to keep Jack silent. “When I was accused of being a Death Eater, Albus vouched for me, claiming I’d been a spy all along.”

Jack leaned over the table, one arm stretched out and the other pillowing his chin, his chest flat to the sticky wood. A sneer curled Jack’s lip, eyes dripping with the same venom that thickened his words. “So then, Sevs, how many are in Azkaban ‘cause of you? How many did you sell out for your own _fucking_ freedom? Did ya give my name too, huh? Am I stuck in this filthy fucking flat ‘cause you gave them my name? Well? Did y—"

Snape slapped the table, the impact shuddering through the puddle of liquid at the bottom of Lukas’s coffee cup. The malignance in his hiss put Jack’s to shame. “I gave no one’s name. None of our brothers and sisters languor in Azkaban because of _me._ It was those who would still claim to be loyal who gave their names. I warned whom I could. I warned _you._ Do not place that blame on me.”

Watching the two old Death Eaters look lethal, burning daggers at each other across the table gave Lukas a better idea of the terror of the Dark Lord’s reign than any history book could. Jack with his furious rage and Snape with his poisonous loathing – imagining them as the enemy, the threat in the night, put a shiver down his spine and a heat in a strange deep place in his gut. It was terrifying.

Lukas wanted more.

Unfortunately, it _would_ be a bit of a pain if things came to a head. Jack wasn’t supposed to be using much magic or he’d attract the ministry, so Lukas started a note to intervene, keeping half an eye on the pair as he wrote.

‘ _I’m guessing there’s still some story to go, if you’re sitting down here with us._ ’

A moody pout turned the corners of Jack’s lip down as he sunk back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest as he slumped there. “Yeah, that makes sense, kiddo.” Jack jerked his chin to Snape. “Is he right?”

Snape narrowed eyes at Lukas – and _god,_ he was getting fucking _sick_ of that look – and nodded. “He is correct. It’s been many years since the Dark Lord fell, and I’ve had adequate time to think through my actions and my … feelings.” The word drew a puckered purse to Snape’s lips, and he rapped yellowed fingernails on the table. “I acted rashly on them. Furthermore, Albus never did anything of significance to protect Lily and earn my loyalty. His one method, to send her and her family into hiding, was ultimately the cause of their downfall. Making _Black,_ who has already turned traitor twice—"

Jack jerked up from his seat, hands slapping on the table. “Nah, nah, nah – don’t gimme that bullshit. Siri never turned traitor to _anyone_. Sure he pissed off, but didn’t betray us nor the Light, and he weren’t never the secret keeper, if that’s the point you’re tryna make.”

Snape looked unconvinced. “Who else but Black could have been secret keeper?”

“Old hamster boy, Pettigrew, innit. Fuck knows how many times the Dark Lord sent me out with that little twat – probably trying to get me fucking killed – but Pettigrew sure as shit didn’t know how to keep his mouth shut, little rat. Siri didn’t have _shit_ to do with it, so you can fuck off with that.”

Lukas and Harry had heard this bit too. Jack had made a point of telling them both that no matter that Sirius was _believed_ guilty, he was the pinnacle of loyalty and would never betray anyone, or some crap like that. How highly Jack seemed to think of his father gave Lukas a little bit of hope for the man. If _Jack_ liked him, he was probably okay.

Probably. The guy seemed to change sides like a weathervane in a storm to Lukas, but perhaps he had … reasons.

Snape’s lips thinned. Something tiredly malignant lurked in his black eyes. “Interesting, but irrelevant.” His voice bit. “What I was saying was that Albus no longer has my unwavering loyalty. I remain at Hogwarts because he trusts me and there are … few better options. Truthfully, with all of you … gone, I had little hope to see any of you again. I reacted on instinct when I saw you here, but you aren’t my enemy, Jack. I hope you still think the same about me.”

“I’ll think on it.” Jack crossed his arms and glared. Lukas grinned. He wasn’t serious at all. “Now how about why you’re actually here. You got Lucky’s letter?”

Idle, Snape drew a creamy envelope out of his pocket and dropped it on the table. Lukas’s name was at the top, along with some pretentious posh-boy middle names that he was glad Jack had never told him. Lukas Alphard Oren Black, followed by his address, right down to ‘The Only Bedroom of Flat 930’. It was all written in green, spidery ink. Lukas flipped it over. A red seal bearing the Hogwarts crest in honest-to-god wax emblazoned the back.

 _Well, that part of his story is true at least, or he mugged whoever had my letter originally._ Lukas snorted. Perhaps that was why it took so long to get here.

“Something funny?” Snape drawled. Lukas shook his head and cracked the seal. Inside was two sheets of parchment so thick they nearly made him drool. The stuff it was written on was probably more interesting than the letter. Even the book list was basic stuff. He’d read it all and further ahead already. Not that he’d actually cast any spells, so he had a little something to keep him busy at least.

Once he’d finished, he flashed Jack a thumbs up then tugged his notepad over.

‘ _So, does Dumbledore know who I am?_ ’ Lukas directed the note at Snape.

Snape’s eyes narrowed, but past that, he gave nothing away. “He will have suspicions, undoubtedly, but I have no inkling how far his knowledge of you goes. He may believe you to be dead like the rest of the wizarding world, or he may know more than he hasn’t _deigned_ to tell me. I’m of no help to you on that front, I’m afraid.”

A frown puckered the space between Jack’s brows while he rolled the mug between his hands, one Lukas echoed in a twist of his lips as their eyes met. They had their suspicions about Dumbledore’s involvement. No way he wouldn’t notice another magical child in the boy saviour’s house. Whether he’d put Lukas there or not, or wiped his memory or not, they thought he probably had something to do with one of the two.

“Oh!” Jack sat up in his chair, banging his empty cup against the table. “D’you know where Anthea is? Or … how she is?”

Lukas perked up. Jack – and everyone else – had lost contact with both of Lukas’s parents after he disappeared, but at least they knew where Sirius was. Anthea had disappeared, and no amount of Jack’s searching had turned up news.

Snape shook his head, and Jack deflated. “I have not, I’m afraid. Albus searches for her too. I’ve been assisting him in the search, but to no avail. I’ve long suspected she’s in Himmingård, although I’ve not informed Albus of my thoughts on the matter.”

“Shit…” Jack scratched at the side of the head. “You seen Astraea? I ain’t had a chance.”

“Yes, several times. Alas, she remains closed-mouthed. I have to say…” Snape trailed off into a long sigh and uncrossed then re-crossed his legs, the crisp black fabric of his trousers taut across his knee and a troubled tightness to his lips, “hearing not even _little,_ but nothing… I worry that after her father, then Mikael – as much as I’m _loathe_ to insinuate his death might have troubled anyone but you—”

Jack snorted and got up from the table, cup swinging around his finger. “Fuck off.”

Playfully said, but Lukas didn’t miss the tension in Jack’s face before he turned away.

Snape continued as if uninterrupted. “—But he must be considered. And then with Lukas after what happened to her brother … it may have been too much for her.”

“Yeah…” Jack flicked the coffee machine on and raised his voice over its death rattle, leaning back against the counter. “I did wonder about Himmingård. I, uh…” His fingers scratched at the side of his hair. “I don’t know if the wards are still open to me, so I haven’t gone to look. Anyway, guess that don’t really matter.”

“No...” The word lingered and Snape’s fingers tapped once, twice against the table before he sighed and dropped them. “She will appear when she is ready to face us again.”

A lengthier silence passed while both Jack and Snape just sort of … stared into the distance. The way they both talked, neither of them expected her to turn up at all. Lukas chewed on the tip of his pen, gathering his knees up to his chest. Why didn’t either of them just say it?

How long were they going to stare at nothing for?

The coffee machine stopped, but Jack made no move to pick it up. Snape’s fingers tapped against the table, so lightly they didn’t make a noise.

Lukas crossed his legs and doodled a ghost lurking over a gravestone in the corner of his notebook.

He fleshed it out to a cemetery and a spooky tree before he gave up and scribbled out a note. Time to get some things done and leave these two to their maudlin vacancy.

‘ _I’m gonna get Kev to take me to fetch Harry. Make sure he’s gone when I get back and see if we can go to Diagon tomorrow.’_

Jack started a little when Lukas leant back to waggle the notepad in front of his face, taking long slow blinks as he read it. “Oh … yeah. Yeah, gowan, kid. Sure thing. Just one thing before you go.” Jack turned to Snape, baring teeth in a wolfish grin as he snagged the coffee cup from beneath the machine. “Nothing against ya, Sevs. Hope you don’t take it personally, but I gotta be careful.”

“A magical vow, is it? What sort?”

“I dunno…” Jack took a thoughtful slurp of boiling liquid. “Like, I was thinking unbreakable vow, but Lucky don’t have a wand.”

Lukas rolled his sleeve up and stuck out his arm, grinning as Snape flinched at the sight of his bare skin. It wasn’t a pretty sight, but he liked it that way. Thick burn scars encircled his wrists and elbows, stark marks that refused to fade along with a generous scattering of smaller scars sliced along his pale skin. The rest of his body wasn’t much better. It made people uncomfortable, and it was only fair. He had to live with the memories after all.

Lukas twirled his finger to Jack. _Get on with it._

“Uh huh, sure that works.” Jack took another long drink and dropped back into his chair. “Unbreakable vow it is.”

Snape’s eyes flew wide and he made a strange spluttering noise. “With the _boy_?”

“With Lucky, yeah. He don’t get any repercussions from this. No problem-o.”

“The boy can’t speak the vows.”

Lukas huffed and pulled his hand back, shaking out his sleeve. That’d be a problem. A little jump went through his chest and he stopped himself looking down at the table. How many _other_ things would be a problem because he couldn’t speak?

Jack looked unperturbed. “Eh, worth a shot. Swear on your magic then.”

“What shall I swear?”

Lukas rapped his knuckles on the table and held up a finger. While Snape and Jack waited, he made a little list of points then put them together into a tight vow. Jack read it through, grinned, and knocked his knuckles against Lukas’s shoulder before handing that and the wand back to Snape.

“Don’t try anything with that,” Jack said, “alright?”

A smirk curled Snape’s lip. “Come, Jack, you should know you don’t have to worry about that.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jack said, but the grin said he believed Snape.

Snape cleared his throat and placed his wand against his chest where the heart lay. In a monotone intonation, he recited the vow Lukas had written from the notepad, binding him into keeping the both of them a secret. As he spoke, “So mote it be,” a flash of white light burst from the tip of Snape’s wand and sunk into his chest.

Jack sat back and grinned. “Sweet! All done here then. Stop antsing and piss off then, kid.”

Grinning, Lukas scampered off his chair and snagged Jack’s pack of tobacco before he headed off. He heard Jack offer Snape a cup of tea, and waved goodbye as he exited the flat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a bloody long one! "Sevs" and Jack just kept talking to each other...
> 
> How do you all like the Snape characterisation? And how about his interactions with Jack? I like these two being old friends by way of really not fitting in with everyone else in Slytherin back in the day. We'll have to see if Snape's being entirely honest about which side he's on now, however.


	7. Fresh Beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Goodbyes and a new beginning: Lukas goes to Hogwarts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we've hit the end of the 'prequel' chapters! Lucky's gonna do so awfully with all these people around.
> 
> .

Today was the day.

Lukas stopped just outside the entrance to King’s Cross Station while Jack and Harry forged ahead, and took a deep breath of air, turning his face up to the sun. The heat of the summer still had its grip on the day and the black fabric of his clothes burned against his limbs. Perhaps he should’ve worn something with short sleeves, but Lukas liked baking like this. Like a reptile. The heat warmed into his bones and uncoiled a part of him that was otherwise tangled, rigid and taut.

This would be his last time in London for a long time. Until Christmas, in fact, and that time would be spent somewhere utterly strange. He’d … miss the city. From his first memory, he’d been surrounded by the constant roar of traffic and buzz of human life. It was part of him. A mark tattooed into his skin.

Lukas inhaled again, savouring his last breath of polluted London air, and with it still tangy and musty on his tongue, he headed inside.

There was no chance Jack had missed Lukas falling behind, but he hadn’t stopped. Lukas caught up easily enough anyway. The activity of King’s Cross always enthralled Harry to the point of turning his walk to a tourist’s stumble. The boy knocked into people and the disruption in his wake left a breadcrumb trail for Lukas to follow. Jack pushed a year’s worth of luggage on the railway trolley, including a slightly dull little owl called Glimfeather, and if Harry hadn’t made them an obstacle already, that trolley definitely would have.

Lukas fell in beside Jack, wiggling his fingers at Harry before pulling his notepad from his jeans. During the trip to Diagon, an ‘Eezy-Shrink’ notepad on sale had inspired Lukas to figure out how to do the same with his, and now it rested in his pocket when he didn’t need it, about the size of a zippo.

Now he flashed a note to Jack. ‘ _You do know where we’re going, right?_ ’

Beneath the deep black hood that he wore, Jack flashed Lukas a wolfish grin. He had to shout over the clamouring noise. “That’s gotta be the hundredth time you’ve asked me that, kiddo. I told ya I know, didn’t I?”

 _‘You also told me you’d never used the muggle entrance before, so ‘scuse the scepticism._ ’

“Sure, but platform nine and three quarters can’t be that hard to find, right? Three quarters of the way between nine and ten. Easy.”

Lukas sighed and squeezed in between Harry and the trolley, keeping his feet moving neatly so Jack didn’t jam into his ankles while he wrote. ‘ _Keep an eye out for anyone who looks wizarding.’_

Jack had given Harry a big bucket hat and pulled it as tight and low over his head as it went. His glasses knocked against the fabric, but his scar was thoroughly out of sight. It looked stupid, and Lukas had told him so, earning a punch in the arm, but Harry wore it with pride anyway.

This one was nothing in the grand scheme, but Harry always liked little deceptions like this. They’d had to do a few in his time with them – what with all the legal _nothing_ around both of them staying with Jack – but Jack had always turned them into a game. More than likely, it kept Harry feeling normal. Jack had done a really good job at making things for Harry _normal,_ no matter how abnormal his life was.

Harry grinned cheekily, his eyes dancing behind his smudged glasses. “So Jack _doesn’t_ know where we’re going?”

“Shut up, boy wonder,” Jack growled.

Lukas and Harry glanced at each other and burst out laughing.

Jack ploughed through the masses with the trolley as they headed to platforms nine and ten, while Lukas and Harry let him act spearhead icebreaker for their little formation. Harry chattered his ear off about a gazillion irrelevant things while Lukas let his eyes trail over the crowds in search of wizards or something _interesting_.

No rush. It was still early, and they had plenty of time to find the mysterious platform when Jack, inevitably, couldn’t find it himself.

At the head of the long peninsula that housed platforms nine and ten, the three of them huddled together with the trolley in an out of the way spot. If Jack _knew_ where they were going, this would be where he’d brashly announce it and swagger over, but _exactly_ as Lukas had expected, he just peered around the platform, clearly lost. Lukas elbowed him in the side, grinning, and Jack scowled.

“There’s gotta be a sign here somewhere. Fucking hell.”

“There wasn’t one for the Leaky Cauldron.” Harry’s words were absent, an offhand comment while he scanned the platform. A moment later and he bounced up on his toes, eyes widening. “Oh, look at them! Do you think they’re magical?”

Lukas and Jack followed Harry’s jabbing finger to a large, entirely ginger family. There were five kids – four boys and a tiny girl, who clung to her mother’s hand – all with the same flaming orange hair. The mother was bustling around, tapping heads and straightening luggage on the array of trolleys. Most people who passed by looked at them with disbelief, eyes like pennies as they drank up the gargantuan stack of trunks, the owl crowning it, and their very bad muggle clothes.

 _Yep, wizards._ What were they doing here?

When Lukas had asked Harry to look for someone magical, he’d meant look for a muggleborn with trunks and pets like theirs, not a whole damn wizarding family. Lukas glanced up. Jack’s lips twitched outward, hesitating right on the brink of a grimace. A moment later, he groaned and pulled his hood lower.

“ _Weasleys,_ ” he hissed under his breath. Lukas nudged him and turned his palm up, raising his eyebrows. Jack beckoned him a little closer while Harry was distracted and leant into to murmur in his ear. “Super light purebloods. I can’t go over there. I’m a famous face for that lot.” Lukas tilted his head. “I’ll explain later, but they know me. Trust”

“Hey?” Harry dragged his eyes from the family, tugging at the edge of the bucket hat as he turned back to them. His nose scrunched up like it did while he was thinking. “What do you think? Should we go ask?”

Lukas held up his finger to stop Jack’s no. ‘ _We’re probably better just watching. I don’t want to talk to them._ ’

A little well of disappoint lifted behind Harry’s big green eyes, and Jack snapped onto it instantly. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the shops lining the head of the platform. “Why don’t you go get me a coffee and yourself something sweet, kid. Me and Lucky’ll keep an eye.”

Harry’s face lit up like a beam of sunshine. “Alright! What can I get?”

“Anything you like, boy wonder.” The moment Harry grinned like that, it echoed all dopey on Jack’s face. Lukas shook his head, forcing his grudging smile away. Idiot.

Once Jack handed Harry a tenner and sent the kid packing, Lukas wrote a note. He held it up high to where Jack kept a hawk eye on Harry as he trotted over to the shop.

‘ _Tell me who they are then_.’

“Old pureblood family. A light one. That’s Molly Weasley over there. She and her husband were both in the Order during the war. I told you about that, right?” Lukas nodded. “Sure. Me and Corb were with Barty and the three Lestranges when they killed brothers – I mean, I didn’t actually do shit. Call it, uh…” A grimace spread across Jack’s lips and he scratched the back of his neck beneath the hood. “Call it me being too high and causing trouble, huh? Good thing too, or I would’ve gone right down with ‘em. Plus, Mik killed her husband’s uncle during his little ritual back in the forties.” The expression on Jack’s face changed when he mentioned Mikael. Lukas wouldn’t quite say _improved._ “Yeah, I’ve fought her a couple of times in raids. Pretty vicious like, and she’ll have been paying attention to all our mugshots.”

Lukas wrinkled his nose as he held his note up. ‘ _Here’s hoping I don’t have to deal with one.’_

“Eh, far as I knew all their kids were older than you, but there’re two little ones with her too—" Jack nodded over at the Weasleys, who were now talking to Harry—"so she might have more. What’d I tell you about them pre-whatsits you always get anyway, huh, kid?”

‘ _Preconceptions?_ ’

“Yeah, that’s the one.” Lukas stuck his tongue out and scowled, and Jack laughed. “Yeah, fuck off. You know you keep doing it. I ain’t never seen anyone you didn’t decide you don’t like before you even meet ‘em.”

Lukas wouldn’t argue with that, but it wasn’t like he’d ever been _wrong._ But if Jack was making a point, now _Lukas_ would have to make a point not to. Maybe they wouldn’t be too hideous. Anyway, lots of Light families wound up in Gryffindor, and Lukas doubted he’d end up there. Bold and courageous. Lukas shook his head, smirk curling his lips. Like hell. He’d probably end up in Ravenclaw.

“Hey.”

Lukas glanced up at Jack, then followed his finger across the milling crowds. A few pigeons streaked above it all in a fluster of squawking and ruffled feathers. Molly Weasley had her hand on one of her son’s shoulder, squaring him up with a place she indicated with a short, freckled finger.

Then he was off. The boy struggled through the crowd, pushing his trolley before him. A few times, gaggles of travellers swallowed the sight of him, but Jack, much taller than Lukas, kept track, pointing the ginger kid out when he re-emerged. When he disappeared from both of their sights, it was in plain view … straight through a brick pillar.

Jack clapped a hand to his forehead and laughed.

“Shit, that was what Lovegood always talked about! Check that out, Lucky, I told ya I’d work it out, didn’t I?

Exactly when someone else had shown him all of it. Lukas grinned and shook his head, settling back against the brick pillar to wait.

Once the last of the Weasleys had vanished and Harry had returned with a coffee for Jack and something sickly sweet for himself, the three of them made a beeline toward the pillar with the trolley, By now, Lukas had a … vague concept of how it might work. At least in a nuts and bolts sense. Concretely, he didn’t know a sliver of as much magic as he’d need to figure it out.

Lukas went through first. He held his breath, but he kept his eyes wide open. Not that it was particularly interesting. The world around him blinked out of existence for a moment, as if he passed through a paper-thin sliver of … not-reality, and then an entirely new sight filled his vision.

The platform wasn’t _really_ different to King’s Cross – not in the structure of it – but everything else… Well, it was as if he hadn’t just passed through a skein between places, but between worlds. A parallel universe where everything Lukas had known had been turned on its head. The same crowds bustled about, and the same teary goodbyes or business-like boarding went on. A sense of transition still haunted the place as if it existed only for this moment and once the train departed it, the next projector slide would slot into place, and a new world would burst into existence, the old forgotten but for the litter of ticket stubs and forgotten things tracked into the dusty tiles.

And what a train this was! A great, sleek, scarlet behemoth that belched steam from a tall funnel. It floated down the long chain of carriages and over the platform like an atmosphere beneath the vaulted glass roofs.

But the familiar made the frame that cast the oddities into stark, fantastical relief.

Just before him, tearing his attention from the train, a woman waved her wand, easily and carelessly, and an agitated owl’s feathers turned from vivid pink back to soft browns and golds. As its beak shrunk from a duckbill to a more reasonable size, the owl gave a hassled hoot, and an older boy sulked as his mother admonished him.

All around him, these tiny acts of magic went on without a soul giving them notice. Trunks levitated, clothes snapped into shape, wayward toddlers staggered back on invisible leashes. It was bizarre, but the way these people went about it made it so ordinary that his vision seemed to swim with altered perception.

As Lukas stood there with saucer eyes and a racing heart, his held breath escaped in a small gasp. This was it. From this moment hence, he was officially part of the wizarding world. He had an entirely new place to carve out for himself. He could be an entirely new person. In this moment, Lukas Black didn’t exist.

He was utterly free.

Harry bobbed up beside him, and a jagged rattling emerged behind him as Jack stepped through the arch, and just like that, the moment vanished.

Oh well. Lukas Black had never really existed anyway. Lukas was himself – nothing more, nothing less. He was no one else’s parenting and no one else’s genetics, that he maintained. Losing his all his childhood memories gave him one thing, and that was an independence in himself that no one could _ever_ take away.

“This place is amazing!” Harry’s shout drew the attention the people nearby, and most spared him an indulgent smile. His wandering steps took him into the path of an elegant man with long, platinum blonde hair, who nearly walked right into him. Ruffled, he spared Harry and Lukas a single salty glare before ushering on a pretty woman and a boy about Lukas’s age with matching hair.

Lukas wrote a note when Harry came back. The kid bounced on the balls of his toes, and his cheeks were flushed pink with bushy-tailed excitement. ‘ _It’s just like Diagon._ ’

shot him a crafty grin that said he knew exactly how much of an aloof front Lukas put on. In Diagon, Lukas had felt as much like an outsider to all the wonder as he did now, but this time, he _knew_ he was on his way to become part of it. When he came back to this station at Christmas, he’d truly be a wizard.

Jack pulled the trolley up beside Lukas, the shadow of his hood shading his eyes as he hunkered low over the bar. “Jeez, you’re a miserable little bugger, Lucky.” Lukas gave him the finger and Jack winked while he ruffled Harry’s hair. “It’s cool as shit, ain’t it, boy wonder?”

“Isn’t it?” Harry bounced on the balls of his feet again. Lukas honestly had no idea how so much exuberance could reside in one body. “I can’t wait to go next year! Let’s go find you a carriage, Lucky. It looks pretty full already.”

Lukas nodded and ducked into a dramatic bow, gesturing Harry onwards and sending the boy into a fit of laughter.

All of the carriages at the front of the train were packed with students laughing with friends or chatting with family members. All that chaos would drive him mad, so Lukas hustled them all down to the end of the train. Here, most carriages were still empty, doors hanging invitingly ajar. He picked one at the end of an empty car, and Harry and Lukas took in more of the sights while Jack hauled the luggage up into the racks.

When he was done, Jack collapsed onto the steps, hand pressed to his chest and his face flushed. Lukas pushed Jack’s loosened hood back over his eyes as he dangled the note before Jack’s face.

‘ _All tired out?_ ’

“Fuck off,” Jack growled. “How did you get so much shit?”

Harry jumped up onto the stairs beside Jack, hanging from a railing. “It’s all of Lucky’s books.”

Jack’s fingers dug into his shoulder while he glowered at them, massaging. “Yeah, and don’t I know it.”

‘ _Better get on the weights. Gonna have even more when I come back._ ’

“Here’s a challenge for you, kiddo. Learn the featherweight charm by Christmas.”

They sat and talked for a little. Jack gave out tips on getting around Hogwarts and rehashed the old advice on the disposition of the professors that he thought _might_ still be in Hogwarts. Lukas kept an eye on the clock, only half listening to Jack’s rough drawl, and when the minute hand on the huge, wrought iron clock high on the platform wall hovered somewhere around the nine, Lukas nudged Jack, pointing it out. Soon as Jack’s eyes set on it, he hissed a curse and jumped up from his seat on the steps.

“Shit, I better go, Lucky. I gotta job for Matthias at eleven.” His grimace widened, baring a flash of teeth as he glanced at the clock again. “Already gonna be late…”

For a moment, Jack’s eyes lingered on the train, a purse gathering around his lips, and then he planted his hand on Harry’s bucket hat, the palm spanning almost the entirety of the top. “Hey, kid, you mind if I talk to Lucky by himself a mo?” Harry shook his head, grinning, and Jack instructed him to wait in the carriage while Lukas drifted off to where the cars met.

A rough-edged sigh slid from Jack’s lips as he leant against the carriage beside Lukas, shoulder against the scarlet paint and his arms crossed. “You don’t want some soppy goodbye, do you?”

Lukas mimicked his position, head turned up so he could see Jack’s face and his hands clutching his notebook in front of him. Slow, he shook his head. Maybe he did want a hug, but that didn’t belong to Lukas. The touch would only make him sick.

But Jack smiled anyway. A bit of a weak thing, but he smiled because he knew. “Just be careful up there, kid. Not everyone’s as wilfully oblivious as Sevs. When they hear your name called at the sorting, they’ll know exactly who you are, or their parents will when the kids write them about the mysterious Black kid, and not all of them are gonna good intentions. I know I don’t gotta tell you that, but y’know…”

Lukas wrote a quick note, thankful for the moment to duck his head from Jack’s eyes. He’d always loved overcast days but seeing the clouds of Jack’s eyes so heavy with rain just made his chest tight. A little hard to breathe. ‘ _I’ll be careful, I promise._ ’

“Thank you.” They were the sincerest two words Lukas had ever heard from him. “And you remember what I said about Dumbledore, right?” Lukas nodded.

“And if … shit—" Jack scratched his fingers in the side of his hair, knuckles pushing against the fabric of his hood. He tipped his head back, a short huff of breath as his eyes turned to the glass sky. “Just if anything – _anything –_ seems like it’s not right, tell Snape, okay? He’ll get to me quicker than an owl will. Like I ain’t just babying you, kiddo—"A weak smile on his lips, Jack caught Lukas’s eyes again—“I mean whoever did all that shit to you when you were little, the old coot or not, they’re still hanging about, and I’ll bet they don’t have any good ideas about you.”

Lukas held up his notepad again with the words ‘ _I promise_ ’ from the last note underlined twice. Jack smiled at him. It was a watery sort of smile and it put a twinge through Lukas’s chest. If it were anyone but Lukas, Jack would probably be crying, but because it was Lukas, he stopped himself.

“I know you will, kiddo. Little fuckin’ genius. You probably got it all covered, but even so…” Straightening up from his lean against the train, Jack stuck his hand into his jean pocket and dug around. “I wanted to give you, uhhh … there it is! This—"

In the centre of his palm sat a small ring of unembellished silver. It was thin and looked cheaply made. Lukas picked it up, the tips of his fingers brushing against the warmth of Jack’s palm, and slipped it onto his index finger – a perfect fit. Jack scratched the back of his head when Lukas gave him a quizzical look, his lips stretching out tight while his eyes drifted off across the platform crowd.

“It’s, uh – It’s enchanted. Twist it left once and right twice and I’ll know and … y’know, I’ll come to wherever you are. Straight away and no matter what I’m doing. Just … use it if you’re in a really bad mess and getting Snape to fetch me when he can find me ain’t any good, okay?”

The note made another good excuse to look down. This time to hide the unwilling trembling of his own lips. ‘ _Thank you. I will._ ’

A smile flickered across Jack’s lips as he read the note, softness drenching his features behind the awkward way he grimaced and wouldn’t quite look at Lukas. “And it’s not just for, uh … external dangers. Like, _whenever_ you need me, use it. It don’t matter what for.”

Lukas felt his throat tighten. _You know if I were anyone else, I think I’d be crying right now._ All the same, he could feel that oppressive tension in his chest that he didn’t much like but Jack always seemed to cause. _Happiness._ ‘ _Thank you._’

Like a breath of relief, Jack laughed, a grin spreading proper across his face now. “It ain’t no problem, kiddo. Like, I just want you to remember that I’m _always_ here for you, y’know, and now you can let me know when I’m needed.”

Lukas nodded, but no matter how much he wanted to keep holding Jack’s eyes and smile back, he couldn’t. Turning so his back was against the carriage, heat baking through the metal into his skin, his eyes slipped away and the ache in his chest eased a little. They’d always had their moments, but nothing … big like this. Subtle actions and absent words – that, Lukas could deal with. But not this.

Jack must have known Lukas struggled with it, because when he looked back, all that melancholy had vanished behind a grin. The rest of the departure was smooth-sailing, and Lukas twiddled his fingers at Harry from the steps of the carriage while Jack led him off until they were both out of sight.

Lukas settled down beside the window. The final students trickled out of the crowds and onto the train now, the reverberation of slamming doors carrying down the carriage. A few more minutes and he’d be gone too, miles and miles and miles away from Jack and home and everything he knew.

The ring on his finger scratched against the one beside it, rough edge nicking flesh, and Lukas brushed it, careful not to turn it. A thrill in his chest echoed the press of warming metal, something thin and bloody, a little jet shooting up his throat. Something new awaited him, but it wasn’t really _away._ Maybe that had been the goodbye he’d been craving all this time: nothing but a _see you soon._

•─────⋅☾ ⋅ ☽⋅─────•

The journey to Hogwarts ticked by pleasantly. The seats were soft and pliable, and the width of the compartment was just small enough that Lukas could kick his heels up on the seat opposite, and so he lounged for the journey. He attempted the odd spell as it came to mind but mostly just watched the scenery and daydreamt about what lay at the end of the railroads.

A little bit of him _planned_ as well, vague scenarios murmuring through his head as the land rose into heather moors. Jack had said Slytherin would be living hell if he stuck to the muggleborn story, so he’d nip that in the bud quickly and _ominously._ Most of the dark pureblood parents would see Jack as a reliable source when it came to Mikael and the Valrssens, so there shouldn’t be much trouble on that front.

It seemed as if Lukas’s mass-murderer great-uncle would come in useful after all.

When the train slowed down, Lukas changed into the stuffy Hogwarts uniform, and he’d just finished straightening out Harry’s uniform when the train drew to a complete stop. Out in the corridor, students vanished into the crowds like they were swallowed beneath the surface of a lake – and while Lukas didn’t mind crowded streets, presses like that put his nerves on end. He turned his back to it and messed around with his backpack on the seat.

When the train had almost emptied out, Lukas hurried out onto the platform. All of anything he could see was a sea of pointed hats – pointed _fucking_ hats, it was abysmal – with a current easing over to a flock of just-visible carriages. So pointy hats, carriages, and bloody giant swinging a lantern about and shouting for the first years. Lukas snorted and slipped into the milling crowd. The real wizarding world experience.

By the time he got there, the half-giant already led the group down a steep, muddy slope – “Mind yer step now,” the half-giant shouted. Lukas ended up beside a boy with vividly red hair, who gave Lukas one sideways look then stepped in behind Lukas when he pioneered the path. It was a miserable route, full of slick mud and ankle-snapping roots, and the giant’s distant lantern barely illuminated the pitted ground beneath their feet. The group was pleasantly silent as they traipsed down the hill.

“Yeh’ll get yer firs’ sight o’ Hogwarts in a sec,” the giant called from ahead, “jus’ round this bend here.”

A moment later, a chorus of _oohs_ and _aahs_ erupted from the front of the crowd. Whatever it was, a rocky outcropping studded with wind-cowed trees blocked Lukas’s sight. The half-giant had disappeared around it with most of the group, leaving the rest of them in near-complete darkness.

“I’m getting all excited now,” the redhead behind Lukas said. “I do hope it lives up to expectations.”

Lukas laughed, as did the girl just in front of the pair. The redhead winked at Lukas when he glanced back. It seemed to be more of a confiding wink than a flirty one, so Lukas winked back. Immediately, the redhead’s friendly smile slackened an expression of jaw-dropping amazement, eyes fixed on the horizon above Lukas’s head. Was that…?

They’d passed around the bend, and in front of them, a magnificent vista bloomed across a vast, mirrored lake. Perched atop a sheer cliff above that slick expanse could only be Hogwarts. The night was dark, the sliver of moon concealed by thick clouds, and all it left of the castle was a parade of bright lights shining from its many windows. Each light glinted like tiny suns spangled across the night sky, eclipsing and replacing the stars. The way the lights peaked and fell hinted at soaring turrets and swirling towers, and the crouching bulk of a colossal structure below.

The black waters of the lake winked the spectacle back at them. Each mirrored pinprick made shimmering lanterns just beneath the surface – marsh will o’ wisps, tricky fae creatures lurking beneath the surface, awaiting, luring…

The half-giant had halted on the shore of the lake, waiting for the stragglers to catch up while the students stood with their mouths ajar, breathing in the stunning view. Once the last of the first-years had stepped off the path onto the beach, the half-giant raised his lantern, illuminating a fleet of tiny, rickety boats with no obvious paddles or sails. “No more’n four to a boat!”

Lukas wasn’t entirely certain that those boats would hold one person, let alone four, but he got in dutifully, losing the redhead somewhere along the way. The boat hardly rocked as he stepped lightly inside.

Once everyone was seated, the half-giant’s voice boomed over to them. “Everyone in?” He scanned the shore but didn’t wait for them to answer. “Right then — FORWARD!”

And with that, the little boats lurched into motion and skimmed along the surface of the lake. The silent ripples they left in their wake were the only mar on the glossy surface.

His boat companions introduced themselves. Introduced themselves _nicely_ even, favouring Lukas with wide, nervous grins. It was _weird._ Maybe he did look pretty normal today. True to his word, Jack had taken him to buy coloured contact lenses, and he wore a combination that made both his eyes the same dark blue. Plus without his clothes, what more stood out past this hacked-up punkish haircut?

Lukas rolled his tongue against the back of his teeth. Normal. He didn’t like that. And he probably ruined it when he just smiled vaguely at the other three and didn’t give his name. Past that, nothing else broke the eerie silence while Lukas turned to the looming cliffs.

The journey across the lake lulled Lukas’s mind to a zen as clear as the water ahead of them, and the hypnotisation of the will o’ wisp lights beneath the surface smothered his mind. A shout rung across the lake and Lukas almost jumped out of the boat, his eyes flying up to face the ivy-coated cliff face.

The words of the shout kicked in a second later. “Heads down!” Lukas obeyed with haste, and as they reached the ivy, it parted for the boats in vine-like clumps and revealed a low arch passing straight through the cliff. The rock ceiling of the tunnel glistened with some soft, sourceless fluorescence, and Lukas breathed in the musty scent of algae. Water dripped on his upturned face, fresh little beads of ice that brightened his mind.

The long passage opened into a stony inlet that climbed steeply into a breath of sky and tree. The giant led the hike up the stony beach, and then across a wide expanse of soft grass that rolled like a vast red carpet turned greyscale by the moonlight right up to the castle stairs. At the humongous oak-slab doors, the giant raised his huge hand and gave the door three thunderous knocks.

Before the echo died out, the door opened – a mere crack in the scale of things – and revealed an older witch, dressed in deep green robes. Old she might be, but her expression and posture were formidable, and Lukas might’ve called her Head of Slytherin if he hadn’t already met Snape.

They followed her into the castle, passing through a room with ceilings towering out of sight and a marble staircase at the far end. It was all so mammoth that Lukas’s head spun whenever he looked anywhere but right down at the floor, so for now, he did just that. His dull black shoes tapped like shadows across the flagstones, each worn as dull and featureless by age as the next.

Plenty of time for looking around here. A small smile crooked Lukas’s lips as he trailed at the back of the crowd. Plenty of time for _everything._

The witch, who’d introduced herself as McGonagall, hustled them through a small door beside another towering set of oaks, and the door shut behind Lukas with a snick when she flicked her wand above their heads. McGonagall slipped it away as she faced the little crowd gathered in the antechamber.

They all stood silently at first. Without the clatter of footsteps, a low rumble permeated the walls. Voices, a great muddle of them all talking at once. If he closed his eyes, it was almost like home. Almost like nights spent above the city with Jack at the other end of the sofa, like wandering down a busy street or hunching through a supermarket while Jack grimaced at the fruit.

Just like home, until he looked about him at the worn stone walls and the torch sconces hooked to them, casting their flickering orange light across the room. Then it was nothing but strangeness, a threat that buried a pit in Lukas’s gut and trembled in his fingers.

He’d never gone to school. Harry had, but he and Jack both knew Lukas didn’t need to, and they both knew Lukas wouldn’t _play nice_ with the other kids _._ Except now he’d gone and dropped himself into it. Not just that, but there was no home time at the end of the day. The other people in this room, the faceless voices behind the wall, they’d _always_ be around. Missteps and _attention_ surrounded him.

Lukas swallowed hard and closed his hands into fists. The rough metal of the ring bit into his finger and he focussed on it. It’d be fine. Everything would be fine.

While Lukas steadied his breath, McGonagall went on a yarn about houses and sorting, all pepped up by her thick Scottish brogue. It wasn’t anything he didn’t know about from Jack anyway. There’d be a hat and he’d put it on his head, and it’d talk inside his mind and tell him which house he’d join. Jack planned to keep it grinning secret from Harry next year, but he’d told Lukas all about it.

Damn, was he glad of that now.

McGonagall opened a different door to the one they’d entered through, letting in even more of the noise the Great Hall, then turned back to them.

“The Sorting Ceremony is ready to start. Form a line and follow me.”

The first-years bumbled into a rag-tag line and followed her through. Lukas fell in behind another stranger.

The Great Hall was even vaster than the Entrance Hall. Four long trestle tables ran vertically, and students wearing matching ties sat at each one. Lukas identified them as Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Gryffindor from left to right. At the head of the hall, atop a delicate dais, the teacher’s table ran perpendicular to the other four, and in the centre a wizened old man with a ridiculously long beard and matching white hair beamed down at them,

He had to be wearing the most garish clothes Lukas had _ever_ seen, and that was counting Kev’s obscene fashion choices. Dandelions capered across sky blue fabric to a beat that made Lukas a little nauseous. Like he hadn’t already been feeling nauseous. This would be the infamous Albus Dumbledore. For all appearances, utterly harmless, but that just made Lukas all the more wary.

The ceiling … the ceiling stole every breath he had left in his lungs. The vaults of each grand arch were obscured, lost to shadows of themselves in the silky darkness of the night sky. Twinkling stars dotted the expanse, dancing brightness that looked realer than truth. Some swelled as big as the nail on his pinky finger while others were clusters of little pinprick winks studding the velvet. The stars wound into familiar constellations, no matter that each was so crowded with glimmering siblings the shape got lost in the mass.

It was the most beautiful thing Lukas had ever seen.

McGonagall ushered them all into a little herd at the foot of the dais before trotting up the stairs. A spindly three-legged stool with a ragged witch’s hat sat in the centre, and as soon as McGonagall stood beside it, a rip opened in its brim and it began to _sing._

Lukas groaned and put his fingers in his ear until it was over. It _rhymed._ He could just _picture_ those gruffly Scottish lyrics rattling around his head for hours later that night while he tried to sleep. Only when the raucous applause pushed at his muted hearing did Lukas lower his hands, his curiosity burning as he watched the hat take crumpling bows to either side of the room, low chuckles slipping from a curl of that rip in the brim.

How fascinating. How sentient was it?

McGonagall cleared her throat and with a flick of her wrist, unfurled a thick roll of parchment. Once she had everyone’s attention, she called the first name. “Bell, Katie!”

A girl with pigtails yelped and hurried up to the stool. The brim of the hat flopped against her nose when she put it on, oversized and a little ridiculous. Maybe she was smaller than most of them, but where that girl looked a little cute, Lukas would just look stupid. Great.

A few seconds later, the hat shouted, “GRYFFINDOR,” and the second table from the right, full of students wearing red and gold striped ties, erupted into applause. Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw echoed it, but Slytherin remained silent and cool. Once it all died down, McGonagall cleared her throat and called out again.

“Black, Lukas.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lukas really is bad at making friends. What house do you all think he'll get sorted into?


	8. The Sorting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the sorting, Lukas - of course - has to make sure he gets the best bed. And of course, he's not very pleasant about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this gives a broad overview of the students in Lukas's year. Let me know if it drags! You may recognise some names. I've made the year groups bigger than canon because that's way more fun.
> 
> .

“Black, Lukas.”

 _Fuck._ Black was early, _sure,_ but did it have to be _second_?He’d wanted to see more of the sorting before it was his turn. Or … well, people would stop paying as much attention by the sixth or seventh, right? Second was a novelty. Lukas clenched his fists, swallowing against this dryness in his mouth. Jack’s ring bit his finger and he brushed his thumb against it. No problem. Up, sorted, done. Probably Ravenclaw, maybe Slytherin. So long as he didn’t fall over or something, it’d be fine.

An image flashed across his mind. His foot catching on the top step and the comical sight of himself going flying, face smashing into the rickety old stool.

Lukas gulped and took good care going up the steps. Kept his head held high too ‘cause that didn’t look stupid, remember that. It just looked normal to everyone else.

Susurrus whispers trailed from the snake quarter of the hall, and Dumbledore watched him behind steepled fingers. Lukas ignored both and hopped onto the stool, drawing his legs up into an easy lotus. He stared at all the faceless strangers in the hall with cool eyes until the hat dropped over his head and cut off the sight. An old, dusty scent tickled his nose.

“ _Ooh._ ” Lukas’s eyes had drifted shut in the darkness, but they flew open. That was a voice whispering inside his head. Jack had said so but… His heart beat quicker. A voice spoke inside his head. “ _What an interesting life you’ve had…”_

“ _How much can you see then?_ ” Lukas’s thoughts flowed back like a voice, playing about in the same part of his head that the hat spoke from. “ _Damn, it’s good to speak freely like this._ ”

“ _Nothing to assist you, I’m afraid. Those memories have been damaged permanently. Enough chit-chat. I have a job to do tonight._ ”

“ _Ravenclaw or Slytherin, I expect._ ”

The hat chuckled. “ _No question about it. The question is … which one? I can see the thirst for knowledge in you, oh yes, I haven’t seen it’s like in years, but is that thirst pure? Will it ever be satiated by knowledge alone? I can see inside your mind, Lukas Black., I can see the things you’ve done … the things you’ve sought to witness … the things you dream of when the nightmares don’t come.”_ The hat gave a shiver that Lukas felt through his hair and against his cheeks. “ _It’s a horrible place here inside your head… You’re just like a snake; you slither through life, a flickering tongue to disguise that animal savagery that taints all your thoughts. Your potential for violence is so … far … from filled. You aren’t a cunning Slytherin – no, not a political dancer. You’re a cruel, desperate sort, just like Jaxus was._ ”

“ _It sounds like you were never considering Ravenclaw at all._ ”

“ _Perhaps I was, perhaps I wasn’t, but now my mind’s made up._ SLYTHERIN!”

The hat vanished from his head, and Lukas blinked, dazed, against the sharp light that stabbed against his eyes. The entire hall stared at him, a whispering silence full of wide eyes. He’d taken a while then. Perhaps quicker sorts were normal. Too late now.

The applause from Slytherin was a thin and threadbare thing that left the cavernous reaches of the hall echoing with silence, and the other Houses never bothered at all. It prickled at him, little needles in his spine as their eyes tracked his journey, but it felt right anyway. Looked like he didn’t belong anywhere in the end _._ Swallowing hard, he tucked his thumb around the ring on his index finger. He sat at the very end of the table and fixed his eyes back on the Sorting.

Several unremarkable sortings passed. _Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Ravenclaw_ ; a lot of those, rote as rote can be. None of them took particularly long and the tables all gave the same applause. When the hat put Rhys Combs in Gryffindor, the applause was deafening once again.

A second Slytherin followed. Nikita Delaney, a tall girl with cornrows, and the well-mannered but enthusiastic applause put what Lukas had received to shame. Delaney, notably, took a seat several up and across the table from Lukas.

“Edgecombe, Marietta.” Lukas, who’d been making guesses at Houses for each candidate, fiddling absently with the new ring on his finger, was left undecided by her vapid expression. Did the stupid ones go to Hufflepuff or Gryffindor? Depended what sort of stupid, he supposed. Although he’d supposed entirely wrong all ways, as the hat shouted her straight into Ravenclaw.

“Fawcett, Sarah.” Mousey and unremarkable, a pair of glasses perched on her nose that outdistanced Harry’s in thickness by a long shot. She was, as Lukas predicted, announced as a Ravenclaw, which was the only other House that Slytherin applauded for.

“Fields, Jeyne.” _She looks bloody terrified, Hufflepuff_. “GRYFFINDOR.”

“Frobisher, Victoria.” _Prissy as shit. Slytherin or a stuck-up-smart Ravenclaw_. “GRYFFINDOR.”

“Gallus, Emilio.” Lukas watched this one more carefully. _Oh, he looks genial, doesn’t he? Smiling all the way up with not a care in the world, but it’s too perfect._ Lukas knew smiles like that. Slytherin for this one _._ “SLYTHERIN” _Bingo_.

The Slytherins put their hands together for Gallus as well, and though he didn’t join Delaney, sparing her only a tight smile, it was obvious whom he took a seat away from. Lukas folded his arms on the table and slumped into them, his mouth and nose hidden behind the sleeves of his robes. This was going to be hilarious when he broke Erebus out.

“Higgs, Terence.” Lukas had never looked at one boy in his life and thought _football_ as aggressively as he did when Higgs strutted up to the stool. He already moved like an athlete, and Lukas had him pegged Gryffindor until the hat, after a murmuring debate where its flap-mouth worried together, announced him Slytherin. Gallus applauded heartily, and when Higgs sat beside him, he clapped his shoulder and the pair laughed.

Perhaps all these Slytherins already knew each other, little purebloods playing together while their parents talked about _grown-up_ things. Perhaps Lukas could’ve been one of them if things hadn’t gone wrong.

He worried his tongue between his teeth, frowning at Gallus and Higgs muttering together. Would he have still been the outcast? Still been the child who sneaked off from playtime to eavesdrop at the door after his parents had shooed him away? Surely he wouldn’t have been so different that he wouldn’t.

Of course, Jack would never think of sending Lukas off while he talked about ‘grown-up’ things, so he’d never had to eavesdrop at all.

Lukas smirked behind his arms. He did send Lukas off when he _did_ ‘grown-up’ things, and he’d be even more pissed than the few times he’d caught Lukas watching if he knew how many times he _hadn’t_. After that first instance with Jack’s old boss, Lukas had learnt to be a lot more careful.

His eyes fluttered closed. The touches of firelight pink that danced through his eyelids morphed with the memories – sprays of gore and Jack’s head tipped back with blood smeared across his face and down his throat. A dozy smile spread across his lips as he pressed his eyes tighter closed. Arched back, the silver flash of—

“GRYFFINDOR.”

 _Fuck!_ The curse nearly burst aloud from his lips as he started out of his reverie, heart hammering against his chest. Up the table, Nikita Delaney sniggered behind her hand. _God,_ that wasn’t the time to be thinking about that. Lukas shifted in his seat, willing his mind away from the hot feeling in his gut.

The new Gryffindor… Who knew? Some idiots had taken up a chant about a hat trick.

After a Hufflepuff, Lettie Macmillan, was sorted, McGonagall called for Draco Malfoy. Lukas stayed lazed behind his arms, but mentally, at least, he sat up. Was he related to Jack? The hat screamed Slytherin almost as soon as it touched his slick blonde hair, and a particularly loud applause heralded his swagger to the table. Probably not from some distant never-heard-of Malfoy branch then. So could it be Jack’s … nephew? Oh, it had to be. That walk reminded him so much of Jack that Lukas got a little twist in his gut for home. Little Malfoy avoided Lukas like all the others, of course – plonked himself down between Gallus and Higgs. Unlike the others, little Malfoy’s eye on Lukas was more curious than hostile.

After another cluster of boring sortings, McGonagall called, “Ó Fearghal, Riagán.”

 _Isn’t that a bloody name? I didn’t know Irish people still had such Irish names._ Lukas smirked when he saw the redhead who’d walked to the boats with him come up to the dais. He was cute.

Not _Jack_ cute, but cute.

A sharp jump went through Lukas’s chest and his eyes widened behind his arms. _Did I just think that? Fuck._

The hat dithered over Irish almost as long as it had with Lukas, but when it called out the house, it sounded more like a question. Riagán joined Hufflepuff with a smirk that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Lukas.

Pretty much _everyone_ left was boring, then. Well, they’d all been boring anyway, so no difference. Lukas couldn’t even remember if the three from the boat had been sorted – their faces had been lost to the gloom.

Ravenclaw, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, and two new Slytherin girls. First, Adeline Rowle, and the giggles her and Delaney erupted into were like nails in Lukas’s ears, and then Shiori Yuko, who sat separate from both of the groups and Lukas. Her haughty prettiness struck Lukas so dumb that he missed the next few names and sortings. At least when he looked back, there was no goopy ginger hair in the sparse crowd. No _Weasleys._

_And it’s entirely your fault I’m pre-judging so much here, Jack. So there._

A handful more of the last set of students came to Slytherin. A tall boy with a charming smile, Ainsley Urquhart, and a girl with red hair more auburn that ginger – one Ruth Vaisey, who knocked knuckles with Higgs before sitting with the girls.

Two more boys were in the next pair. One was Sebastian Wronski, whose surname seemed to stir some interest, and Felix Yaxley. Wronski stirred Lukas’s interest when he … actually sat beside Lukas. Was he a muggleborn? Except Lukas recognised the name too from somewhere. Perhaps there was a famous muggle Wronski…

The sorting finished, McGonagall rolled up her scroll with precise little movements and exited the hall through door behind the head table, taking both the hat and the stool along with her.

No one had time to begin a conversation. The headmaster rose from his seat, spreading his arms and beaming down at the students as if they were his own little gaggle of kittens or something. The whole _look_ of him was just too genial, too simpering, to be anything like the stories Lukas had heard of him – both from Jack and from history books – and that disturbed Lukas more and more. This was the man who was probably responsible for permanently damaging his memories and not a single soul would ever believe he’d do it, especially to a six-year old boy.

“Welcome!” Dumbledore said. “Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words.” His smile broadened. “And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

“Thank you!”

Everyone clapped and cheered as Dumbledore sat back down, the noise like nails in Lukas’s skull. Would he ever get used to it? It was so _immediate._ So much different to the ambient grumble of the city. It hurt his head and shivered in his gut.

At least it was short. Mounds of food appeared in the wide golden bowls and piled up on the golden platters. Every student in the hall abandoned their manners as they dug in, heaping their plates with all manner of rich, succulent food. The smell of the meats was thick in the air, flavoured delicately by rosemary and thyme and bay Little dishes of vegetables scattered between them, tiny rowboats wicking beside towering cruisers, and each vegetable was cooked to perfection and ready to burst with its juices. Plump potatoes and Yorkshire puddings towered in mounds that strove for the sky.

Lukas dished a small selection of veg and roast potatoes onto his plate and started picking before most of the other first-years were anywhere near done serving themselves. His mouth watered before he even placed the first honey-glazed carrot on his tongue. How could he _ever_ go back to Jack’s cooking after this? He tried, bless him, but it just … wasn’t good. At all.

The other Slytherins seemed content to leave Lukas alone while he ate – or perhaps while _they_ ate, making it too much distraction to do anything but give him sideways looks. Wronski didn’t say a word either until Lukas finished his meagre portion and set his knife and fork down. They felt weird in his hands. Mostly, he ate with his fingers so long as it wasn’t _wet_.

“Is that all you’re eating?” Wronski had a definite accent, something Eastern European. Lukas nodded and glanced up the table. No one looked at them, too busy scoffing roast dinner. “You aren’t as muggleborn as everyone’s assumed you are, are you?”

The tightening lift in Wronski’s angular cheeks and nose as Lukas pulled out his notebook suggested he was raising his eyebrows, but if he did, his floppy fringe concealed all. Although, he peeled his hair back over his head as he read the note.

‘ _You’re about half right_.’

Wronski let his fringe flop back over his face. “Bad throat?”

‘ _Mute._ ’ No one but Jack and Harry needed to know it was elective.

Wronski blushed as he read that, but credit to the boy, you could some diligence in his eyes scanning the note, not the quick read and dismissal most gave. Lukas always found it was the down and outs who took the most time with him; he was fully expecting a lot of difficulty with the noble, pureblood Slytherins.

“You’re a half-blood, then,” Wronski said once he’d read Lukas’s note. “Raised in the wizarding world, I’d guess.”

‘ _Entirely wrong that time_.’

“You aren’t a pureblood, surely? You can’t be one of _those_ Blacks.”

Lukas shrugged and put his elbows on the table, leaning his chin in the cup of his hands. These first-years were absolutely useless at sneaking glances. His gaze obscured by the tips of his fingers, Lukas watched them from corner of his eyes, and not a one of them bothered to hide it more than by keeping their bodies angled away from him. Draco Malfoy kept twisting to face away from Lukas before twisting his head like an owl to ogle him.

‘ _What about you?_ ’

“Pureblood.” Wronski pushed his fringe back again. “But my family isn’t really associated with theirs.”

‘ _That must be why no one’s jumped up to lynch you._ ’ Wronski laughed when he read that part. ‘ _I assumed you were muggleborn. I know I recognise your surname, but I thought it was a muggle one._ ’

“Oh no, I’m pure through and through. Except where I’m from, it doesn’t matter so much.”

‘ _Czechoslovakia?_ ’

Wronski shook his head. “Poland.”

Lukas flicked to the back of his notepad and made a note to ask Jack about Polish Wronskis, and then on a second thought, added ó Fearghal too. Except when he was done, Wronski had gone back to his food anyway. Lukas forced his eyes off across the hall, covering the heat in his cheeks with his hands. Stupid. He always forgot that people didn’t wait for him to finish like Jack did.

Soon, the depleted banquet vanished, only to be replaced by masses of sweet, sticky desserts. Where did they get the ingredients to make all of this? Was it kitchen staff or enchantments? And where did all the leftovers go? A little pit formed in his gut as his eyes trailed around the massive wealth of food. So much went untouched. A small part of himself still wanted to cry at the thought of all that food gone to waste.

There really was nothing like hunger – the way it consumed you from the inside out – and there really was nothing like sitting on the side of the road, nothing but scraps for days, watching people throw half-eaten sandwiches in the bin.

For the rest of the meal, Lukas picked at a slice of lemon tart and a bowl of fruit with sugar sprinkled over the top. It felt like the memory of that black hole in his gut should make him hungrier, but it only reminded him how much that first bite after not eating for days _hurt._ Wronski didn’t talk again and Lukas didn’t bother either. Time enough for that and he had better things to pay attention to.

Except somehow he managed not to pay attention to _any_ of them. For most of the meal, Shiori drew his eyes. Lukas snuck covert glances at her while he mulled slices of fruit over his tongue. The sweetness of the little crystals of sugar went prettily with her face. She sat alone still, eating a bowl of ice cream, but no one seemed to pay much attention to her. Had she come here from Japan, or did her family live in England? The other three girls – Delaney, Rowle, and Vaisey – talked to the boys now, and besides the little outcast pair of Lukas and Wronski, all the rest of them looked familiar with each other. So she probably came from Japan.

Interesting.

_There you go, Jack. That’s at least two people I’m not pre-judging badly._

When the tables emptied again, audible complaints echoed through the room at the loss of the food, but they soon died out as Dumbledore stood from the table and chimed his fork against the glass. All just the usual _announcements_ that Lukas didn’t care about in the slightest because he wasn’t about to obey any rules anyway, and he was right ready to ignore everything until Dumbledore said:

“And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death.”

 _What the fuck?_ Lukas almost found the words tripping off his tongue, but the rigid spasm of his tongue did away with any hope of that.

“Is he serious?” Wronski whispered. “It sounds like they haven’t even locked the place up properly.”

It did, now Wronski mentioned it, and now Lukas had to admit he was pretty curious about whatever was up there.

“And now,” said Dumbledore, “bedtime. Off you trot!”

.

Everyone jumped up out of their seats all at once, and with six years’ worth of students all trying to push through the doors, however big, it was a veritable stampede. Thankfully the first-years were, once again, waylaid from the general student body, though this time by two students of normal size.

Once the crowds had dispersed, two Slytherin prefects led them down a staircase plunging into the castle dungeons. It was a dank route. A cold breeze shivered through Lukas’s thick robes, and the stones were mossy and slick, leaving a coating of green slime on Lukas’s finger when he trailed it along the wall. He grimaced at it and wiped it on his robes. Gross. There _had_ to be another way to the common room.

The last set of turns seemed to guide them around a U-bend, and when they stopped, the corridor was dry and the walls free of muck. The first thing Lukas would do when he had time off lessons was explore this section and find that other damn route. No way that was the main one.

“Hey!” The female prefect’s voice rung brash over the crowd. The milling first-years all turned to her. “Come over here.”

Once they were gathered round, the male prefect stood up on his tiptoes and pointed to a tiny carving of a snake where the wall met the ceiling. He tapped the rock beside it and the little snake squirmed, making Lukas start. “Do you see this?” The other first-years gave a chorus of yeses. “This marks out the entrance to the Slytherin common room. If you stand just right of it, face the wall, and speak the password, then … well, then the door opens. We’ll show you in a minute.”

The female prefect stepped forwards. “The password is changed on the first of every month. You’ll find it written on a piece of parchment on your bedside table that’ll destroy itself by midday, so if it’s the weekend and you’re a late sleeper, you’d better make sure you get up to read it.” She looked pointedly at the girls as she said that. Vaisey went crimson, and Rowle and Delaney giggled.

Related? They _did_ both have the same murky red hair.

“This week,” she continued, “the password is ‘Myrtlewood’. Any questions, then? No? Alright, let’s go in.”

She turned to the wall and repeated the password, raising her head to the little snake in the corner, and as they door ground open, they went inside.

The Slytherin common room seemed to squat in its space. Long and low, and the ceilings felt a little too close no matter that even the tallest person milling through the room didn’t come near to the heavy grey bricks. It lent it an intimacy, while at once swallowing each disparate cluster of people whole. Lukas could imagine huddling at one of those dark-wood tables and even the nearest gaggle of furniture would disappear in the murky darkness between the flickering lanternlight.

The flames that danced behind the glassy shields and in the hearth were not orange or yellow or red, but bitter, poisonous green. It slid across the ceilings and walls like they all cowered within a submarine vault slowly filling with water. No matter the dry, almost reptilian air, the walls glistened as if they were coated with damp and moss.

At least it was hot. Two fireplaces lay at opposite ends of the room, a knot of furniture around each one.

The prefects stopped the group just inside the door. The female prefect glanced at the closest fireplace, and then nudged her counterpart with her elbow. His eyes flashed back from the knot of furniture and he jumped.

“One last thing from us then,” the male prefect said, eyes flickering over his shoulder again. “Your dorms are right down there at the end of the room.” He indicated to a mezzanine, reached by a short, flaring staircase, from which two corridors led off, left and right. Below the balcony, there were eight doors, four left of the staircase and four right. “The girls are through the door with the moon emblem on the left-hand side and the boys in the same on the right. Get accustomed to it, because you’ll stay in the same room until you reach fifth-year, then you’ll be allocated to a two-person bedroom up those stairs.

“Everyone got that? Alright.” In his pause, the female prefect glanced at the fireplace again and made a small, near imperceptible gesture with her hand while the male prefect continued. “That’s all from us then. Just wait here and someone else will be over to talk to you.” He hesitated for a moment, and then hastily added, “Good luck, you lot.”

Both prefects gave a regal sort of acknowledgement and left, the girl toward the cluster of furniture beside the nearest fireplace. On her way there, a man who’d just vacated a high-backed armchair stopped her. There was a short exchange and then he came to stand in front of the first-years.

He stood in silence, hip cocked idly as he let his eyes drift over the group of first-years. There wasn’t really anything remarkable about him. Round-glasses framed dull eyes, and Lukas found himself forgetting the bland face already. The only thing that pricked his interest was his posture; his body language _oozed_ arrogance from nothing but the way he stood and surveyed as if all lingered under his command. He had short fingers, and they wound around each other as the glassy touch of his eyes lingered on a couple of the students – Gallus, Shiori, Rowle, and Wronski and Lukas at the back. Only once he’d taken his fill of the sight did he talk, the slightest lisp putting an edge on his round voice.

“Welcome to Slytherin, little ones, and congratulations on your place in Salazar Slytherin’s great House. My name is Luther Harrington and I am the … unofficial, shall we say, Head of Slytherin House. Sometimes this role is not filled due to inadequate candidates, but this year, and for the year previously, it’s me.” His lips curled into a tight, unpleasant smirk, and while it still touched his wide lips, his trailing eyes landed on Lukas. All at once, a shudder gripped Lukas’s stomach, nails scratching down his spine. Lukas’s toes curled inside his shoes.

He didn’t like Luther Harrington.

“While you’re here,” Harrington continued, “there are certain rules that I set in place and the Slytherins follow. This trend will continue in you as well. The rules will be easy for you to figure out. Those of you who are truly worthy Slytherins will never break them, but for those of you who slip up during your first term here: These days will be your only chance to learn the rules. Past that, there will be…” a flicker of his tongue across his lower lip, and again, his eyes trawled the first-years as if they were a catch of fish, “…repercussions.

“Now,” he held out his hands, palms forward and spread wide as he bent down as if to put himself on their level, “you all must be tired after such a long day. I’ll leave you to settle into your dormitories and get some rest, for tomorrow is an important day. Goodnight, little ones. Sleep well.”

Lukas followed the crowd of first-years as they huddled through the dormitory, keeping his eyes low and pinned to the floor. They split at the base of the stairs and traipsed into their dorm.

The boys’ dormitory mimicked the common room in shape, although as they moved further in, Lukas saw that it had an L-shape, with a final bed sectioning off the addition into a large alcove. Another six beds took more conventional positions – three on each side of the room. The door to the bathroom lay opposite the alcove.

Malfoy drew Lukas’s attention away from the length of the room as he spoke up in a loud, pompous tone. “That was the _Prince,_ ” he said, hands on his hips. “My father told me _all_ about it. He had the position while _he_ was in Hogwarts, of course.”

Oh, _definitely_ Jack’s nephew then. Jack’s brother, Lucius Malfoy, had been Prince in his sixth and seventh year. Jack seemed to find the whole concept of lording political power over a bunch of teenagers hilarious, but apparently a lot of Slytherins liked that kind of thing.

Lukas scanned the room while Wronski went over to his bed and the other five boys joked and bantered beside the last bed on the alcove side. The owl atop the suitcase there ruffled its feathers every time one of them roared.

It ruffled its feathers so much Lukas was a little worried they might fall out.

His stack of luggage was at the end of the central bed on the left. God knew whose things were beside the bed in the alcove, but it hardly mattered as the bed belonged to Lukas now. Power granted privacy in all walks of the world, and hey, it was a small, petty thing, but in this room, he’d sit cosy at the top of the pile.

As if he had the energy for anything else.

Lukas pulled out his wand, and once he’d checked no one was looking, he cast the levitation spell.

Non-verbal spells were supposed to be advanced material, taught only as the witch or wizard approached majority, and not mastered until well into adulthood. It’d been nagging at Lukas since he’d started burning through magical theory, because seriously, what the hell would he do if he had to say spells aloud? Would he have to go to speech therapy, or just accept that it would take him months to master basic spells?

Total bullshit.

It didn’t, of course. He probably would’ve bull-headed his way through it anyway if not, but unlike everyone else, he’d _already_ mastered it. Non-verbal casting needed the same wilful control over your magic as wandless did, just to a much, _much_ lesser degree. It only took him a few attempts to get the levitation spell to work on the train, and from there, things were – as Jack would say – piss pie.

Lukas sniggered to himself as he flicked the trunk up in the air. God, he wished Jack wouldn’t say it.

The only drawback was that he’d have to understand the way the spell functioned a lot better than if he was performing them verbally, but at least he wouldn’t get lazy.

The boys startled out of their conversation as Lukas’s trunk floated over them, tussling the hairs on their heads. He _had_ aimed to barge straight through their group, but hey, it was third time casting this so he’d give himself some leeway on fine motor skills.

“What was that for?” Higgs exclaimed, clutching his head. As the tallest of the group, one corner of the trunk had clipped him. Grinning, Lukas made a point of not looking at them while he dropped the trunk in the alcove then sent the rest of his boxes into the air, a bobbing train of mismatched carriages.

Higgs stormed up to him, closely followed by the others. “I said—"

“He’s mute.” Wronski walked over to the group, a pyjama shirt still dangling from his hand. “I don’t think he can write while he has a wand in his hand. Although I’d say it looks like he’s moving his things over to that bed.”

Lukas’s lips pressed tight and he made a ball of his fist. Jack would tell him to be grateful someone was being nice, but it pissed him off when people spoke for him like that. It was the impersonal ‘he’, exactly the way you’d speak about someone on TV.

“Why is he doing that, then?” Higgs asked.

There it was. Like he wasn’t even a fucking person.

Lukas dropped his boxes off and slipped his wand back into the holster on his wrist. His pen etched into the thick paper as he wrote. ‘ _Would whoever owns the luggage by the bed in the alcove move their things?_ ’’ The boys leaned in to read his note and then turned their heads to look at the bed in comical unison. Yaxley turned back quickest, the expression on his sour face blackening.

“How dare you order me around, you filthy mudblood?” Yaxley took a step forwards and jabbed his finger at Lukas. Good thing he had the grace not to _touch_ Lukas with it, else the lemon-faced twat would be screaming over a broken finger. “You’re lucky you’re even getting a bed. There’s no way you get to pick and choose the best one in here!”

Lukas made a show of giving a great, dramatic sigh, eyes sliding off to the side as he reached under his robes to the sheathe at the small of his back. The low lamplight flashed across the blade as Lukas twirled it around his fingers, and at the sight, Yaxley reared backward, dark eyes flying wide and his mouth jerking like he had something stuck in his throat.

Lukas jabbed at Yaxley – and the little pussy _flinched_ – then indicated the luggage, and finally the now-empty bed. The boy stared at Lukas with blankly livid incomprehension. _Idiot._ Lukas repeated the gesture with jerky movements. If it wouldn’t completely ruin the scare tactics, he’d move the fucking thing himself so he didn’t have to try to communicate with generic private schoolboys numbers one through five.

Wronski started to speak, “I think he—" but Lukas hissed and sliced the air between them with the knife. _His_ moment. Having a goddamn mouthpiece would ruin it. Lukas didn’t _need_ a mouthpiece – he never had, and he never would. Wronski backed up with raised hands. “Alright, alright. Sorry.”

“Look at that filthy muggle tool he’s got.” Malfoy elbowed his way to the front, the lamplight casting sallow shadows across his pale skin. “How dare you threaten us? You’re nothing more than a mudblood. My father will hear about this.”

 _There we go._ Lukas pinned the knife under his arm so he could sketch a quick diagram on his notepad – a small section of a family tree with Sirius Black and Anthea Valrssen – their immediate relations scattered around them – joined by a line that descended to Lukas’s name. He rapped this line with his pen as the group looked at it.

“By Merlin, do you have an ounce of sense?” Malfoy exclaimed. “My mother’s a Black and she’d know if that madman Sirius Black had ever had a child and he didn’t. _Especially_ not with a _Valrssen.”_ And didn’t he just _butcher_ that pronunciation.

Rolling his shoulders, Lukas made himself slacken his stance, cocked hip, put-upon expression, rolled his eyes, the works. He gave an exasperated huff and started on another note, ignoring the heckling coming his way. This one he showed specifically to Malfoy, covering the second half. ‘ _Do you know a man named Jaxus Malfoy?_ ’

“ _Malfoy_? There’s no _Jaxus_ Malfoy.”

Exactly what Lukas had expected. He uncovered the rest of the note. ‘ _If you read up on the last war then you’ll find him. Your uncle, fugitive Death Eater. He was closely associated with Sirius Black, I imagine. Would you take his word on whether the man had a child and who with?’_

Malfoy spluttered. “That’s a _lie,_ that’s _slander._ The Malfoys were never allied with the Dark Lord! My father was under the Imperius Curse.”

‘ _I never said your father. I said your uncle. Answer my question: Would he know if there was a child if he existed?_ ’

“Well yes, I suppose, but he didn’t so—"

Lukas flicked the knife out toward Malfoy with a hiss, and when the boy’s jaw clicked shut, he scribbled. Of course Jack’s idiot nephew started ranting at him again when he was only halfway done. Lukas couldn’t even be that mad about it because Jack would’ve done the same if he were pissed off.

At least little Malfoy read his notes. ‘ _Well he does exist. Do some reading. For now, I say that I_ know _that I am that child._ ’

“That’s—"

Lukas gripped his knife in the same hand as his pen and shook the notepad at Malfoy. The boy gulped, eyes sliding over the long curve of the blade, and finished reading the note. ‘ _I’d also like to remind you that while we’re on the assumption that my mother is Anthea Valrssen, that makes my_ _great-uncle_ _that old necromancer Erebus. I’d say I’ve inherited certain traits from him, and if I didn’t get them from him, then hey, I’m like him anyway. I’d be careful who you call mudblood. Now get Yaxley to move his things or I’ll move them for him._’

Malfoy, already a sickly pale kid, went even whiter. His eyes bulged as they flicked between Lukas and the knife he held. He’d heard the name then. More than that, he knew the stories that went with it.

Delightful.

“I—I have to ch—check something with my father.” Malfoy’s eyes stayed glued to Lukas as he stuttered. “You’d better move your things, Felix.”

Higgs grabbed Malfoy’s shoulder and ducked around him to peer at his face. “Are you really going to do what this—"

Malfoy slapped the hand away and directed his words to Yaxley again. “Do it. Right now. If he’s not who he says he is we can do something about it later, but for the moment, do what he says.”

Ah, and all the other boys looked positively shaken by the intensity in Malfoy’s tone. Although Yaxley still moved with sour reluctance as he fetched his single, large trunk. Lukas watched, tapping his knife pointedly against his thigh, while Yaxley dragged it to the spare bed. With one last thin smile, Lukas strolled over to the alcove.

For once in his life, he slept as soon as his head hit the pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lucky: wow this guy's actually trying to be my friend, it's a miracle  
> Also Lucky: *aggressively waves knife at potential friend*  
> Probably Lucky tomorrow if Wronski doesn't talk to him: *shocked pikachu face*


	9. Matches & Needles Through The Ears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucky's plan to skulk through Hogwarts without getting noticed is very quickly thwarted, and he has a fractious meeting with the headmaster.

Lukas suffered for his early night. By four in the morning, according to the _tempus_ charm he practiced (and succeeded in casting after two attempts), his dry, aching eyes stared at the canopy of the bed, the darkness biting at them like light. The heat gathered around him sunk lethargy into his bones, and it sat there like torture as his exhausted body cried at his mind to let it rest.

It didn't. Never really did.

Still, he was used to early mornings. The silent hours would be bliss over the next few years – privacy to shower and time to prepare for the day in peace. Snores still fluttered around the dorm as he shouldered his bag and left, and silence breathed a sigh into the Slytherin quarters, sweet sleep in the crackle of the hearth flames.

A stone beside the exit had a groove worn smooth into its craggy face by a millennium of use. Lukas pushed it, and the door ground open.

To the dungeons. To Hogwarts. To a new life.

He whiled away the hours until breakfast sweeping the central areas of the castle. Each corridor he traversed and tower he glimpsed scratched out a place in his head.

Lukas spent the last half an hour before breakfast sat outside the locked doors of the Great Hall, doodling ghosts and ghouls and pumpkins in his notepad. He'd gotten entirely lost in it when the sharp announcement of footsteps rung through the cavernous reaches of the hall. Lukas started, clutching his notepad to his chest while his eyes skittered across hidden spaces.

Just someone coming down. Lukas let out a shuddering sigh and jumped to his feet. Nothing more.

Quietly, he withdrew into the dusty shadows that still hung around the alcoves and pillars where the weak candlelight couldn't touch and waited until he saw the familiar face of Severus Snape.

Flowing black robes had replaced the suit, the sleeves cinched tightly up to the elbows. The draping tails hung limp now as Snape trudged through the halls, but Lukas expected they'd swirl about fantastically if he walked a bit quicker.

Lukas stepped out of the shadows and Snape jumped when he appeared. _Eye for an eye._ His posture sharpened up in a blink. He threw back his shoulders and brought his heels together with a crisp tap, but no amount of raising his chin would obscure the drooping eyelids and dark circles.

"Black. What are you doing out of bed?"

Lukas pulled out his notebook and wrote as he walked. ' _I have insomnia. Should I not be out of bed?_ '

"There is a curfew from ten at night, although…" Snape rubbed the side of his nose, black eyes sliding down to Lukas, "there is no clear termination. One would suppose it ends when the corridors are no longer patrolled, which is from four o'clock onwards, so at this time, Mr Black, you are not supposed to be in bed."

 _My god, he actually read the whole thing._ Lukas put on something that might resemble a sunny grin if he tried a little harder. ' _When does breakfast start?_ '

"Six-thirty sharp. It is now—" he flicked his wand – a _tempus_? Lukas's curve at the beginning needed to be much smoother if so— "nearly twenty-five minutes to. Congratulations, Mr Black. Your first day at Hogwarts and you have already delayed the beginning of breakfast."

Lukas glanced at the staircases leading into the Great Hall. In the distance, a slow set of footsteps meandered in the echoing cavities above them. Evidently, Hogwarts wasn't bothered if breakfast didn't begin promptly at half past six.

When he looked back, Snape strode to the door, and with plenty of that theatrical robe billowing now. Delightful. A single tap of his wand, the doors gave a loud, mechanical clunk and swung inwards. Lukas followed Snape inside.

Only the thin light of dawn seeping through the east windows illuminated the hall, cool rays catching the dust dancing in the air. The room before him darkened left to right in an achromous gradient. Snape, the dark figure striding down the centre, didn't break the greyscale.

Yet above him, the sight exploded into chromatic brilliance. The enchanted ceiling displayed the sunrise in all of its glory. Navy sighed out to a china blue expanse that dominated the centre, then clashed dramatically with the orange aura of the rising sun. Throughout the whole canvas broken ribbons of pink clouds darted across the playful blue, observed by the pale wink of the crescent moon. Lukas's breath escaped in a gasp, and his footsteps slowed to nothing as he tipped his head back to the splendour.

Nature captured between manmade walls.

The spell broke when Snape took his seat at the head table. With a clattering racket than made Lukas jump, the day's breakfast appeared on the long trestle tables. The sweet scent of pastries and the rich aroma of eggs and meat swamped the dusty, clean smell that had pleasantly tingled Lukas's nose only moments ago. A little nausea turned his stomach at the assault, but by the time he sat at the Slytherin table, it had faded out of notice.

It wasn't long before the other early birds began filtering into the hall, none of them first years. Lukas took a careful note of each of their faces as they stole into the hall and took their seats. Here and there, a two flittered in, but mostly they sat alone, eating breakfast, poring over a book or a paper, or simply watching the sky turn to day in peace. A sharply dressed man with glasses joined Snape at the head table. They exchanged a brief greeting but no more.

At half seven, (or rather seven thirty-two, according to the _tempus_ that Lukas had been casting at frequent intervals, trying to get a feel for the way the magic in the spell worked), the prefects guided the first set of first-years into the hall, and the quiet sanctity of the early birds was irreparably shattered. It was the Ravenclaws. The Slytherins arrived third, after the Hufflepuffs and seconds before the Gryffindors (at precisely seven thirty-eight).

"Good morning."

Lukas glanced up from his second cup of coffee. Wronski had taken the seat beside him again, about arm's length away. The seating arrangements had changed only slightly, with Shiori joining the girls and the boys sitting slightly closer to Lukas and Wronski, further from the five girls.

Interesting. And what the fuck did Wronski want after Lukas had jabbed a knife at him? He smiled anyway and gave him a small wave. 'Cause hey, he wasn't going to be glowering off anyone who wanted something to do with him after that. Wronski smiled back and dished out a meal of scrambled eggs, thinly buttered toast, and some sort of sandwich. His eyes lingered on the empty plate in front of Lukas, but the obnoxious comment didn't come. Score to Wronski, especially as Lukas _had_ eaten breakfast – he'd had a croissant with strawberry jam and picked the flakes off his plate while the morning drifted by.

Not long later, Snape dropped a stack of papers roughly equidistance from all of the first-years with hardly a passing glance. A grimace turned Lukas's lips as Wronski handed him the last, ragged piece from the bottom of the pile when all the other first-years had finished their scrabbling. Great. Now it'd be shreds by the end of the week.

"Hey?" Wronski held his timetable in his hand and once he had Lukas's attention, tapped their first slot. It was Charms with the Hufflepuffs. "Do you want to try to find this now, so we aren't late?"

Lukas nodded, a small smile curling his lips, studded with teeth and bemusement. No one had ever _tried_ to be his friend before, especially not after he threatened them with a knife.

•─────⋅☾ ⋅ ☽⋅─────•

Lukas had a talent for remaining unnoticed, but apparently that didn't go as far as lessons in Hogwarts. A small nudge persuaded Wronski – _Seb_ , as the boy insisted – to answer for him on the register, and he'd slipped from attention all day so far.

_So far._

After lunch was Transfiguration with the Gryffindors. Lukas and Seb left early, as they had breakfast, to find the classroom ahead of time, but before long they were surrounded by Slytherins. Yaxley and Gallus sat at the end of the bench beside him and Seb, Gallus making broadly gestured jokes and laughing at himself, while Yaxley looked taxed to keep up.

The Gryffindor boys, predictably, sat at the back. And predictably, their laughter ground like the clash of symbols against Lukas's ears. He sunk further into the table between his folded arms, glowering at the front of the classroom.

McGonagall's lesson brought with it their first attempt at practical magic: changing a matchstick into a needle.

Transfiguration was a bit trickier than the other first-year material – the theory had actually looked like _theory_ instead of the abstract blabbering of basic charms – but Lukas _would_ be able to do it. Unquestionably. He wasn't being defeated by this fucking match, all he had to think about it a little more. Nothing else.

Chewing on his lip, he cast the spell over and over on his matchstick, but no matter how he twisted the theory around in his head, nothing changed besides that dismal grey colour creeping into the wood. And that was if it wasn't just his eyes going funny from staring at the damn thing so long.

When he checked the clock, it was halfway through the damn lesson, and he'd cast this spell about _fifty fucking times_ and nothing had changed. Lukas dropped his wand with a hiss. The rub of his hands over his face drew frustrated heat to them. Seb laughed and Lukas glowered at him as well – bastard had made less progress than him.

Something was missing. Transfiguration might be a little harder, but it wasn't _that_ different to the charms or jinxes he'd already cast. He knew what he wanted, and he'd held that pristine in his mind, bobbing like a sparkling lightbulb right at the very centre: he wanted the bloody match to look like a—

That was the problem. He wanted the match to _be_ a needle, and that meant he had to think about the change. _Well, here's all your useless knowledge coming in handy. You know the structure of wood on a microscopic level and you know the structure of metal – let's bring some science into this alchemy._

Science. Lukas almost grinned. Sure, he hated chemistry, but it was something familiar.

"Mr Black?"

For a moment, that went totally over his head. _Black? Who's Mr Black?_ Then he caught McGonagall's eyes boring into his skull like twin screws, and he grimaced, sinking even lower into the fold of his arms. A trace of sympathy marred her stern expression, but it wasn't if she knew _why_ Lukas looked so miserable. _Only two lessons…_

Lukas nodded. Perhaps he could get away as shy.

"Are you having a problem with the spell?" Lukas shook his head. McGonagall crossed her arms, ruffling herself as if it offended her that a first-year _wouldn't_ be having problems with the spell on their first day. "Let's see it then."

Lukas glanced around. Gallus and Yaxley had their beady eyes on him, Gallus sniggering something to Yaxley behind his cupped hand. Great.

No point trying the new way until he had some time to think it over, so he cast it the same way as before, flicking his wand through the precise movements with the spell name ringing through his head. The wood greyed, the end seemed to lengthen and narrow, and Lukas could have sworn there was a tiny dip in the head when he looked closely.

Huh, so it worked on the subconscious level a little too. So what if he _subconsciously_ believed something distinctly false or mythological about one of these spells? That could be interesting…

"Mr Black?" McGonagall spoke sharply, a frown gathering her brows. "I believe I asked you to _cast_ the spell, not _wave_ your wand about and stare at your match."

No getting out of that one _. Damn it._ He picked up his notebook and turned to a fresh page. McGonagall's face softened as he wrote the note. He handed her the match (because you really couldn't call it anything like a needle yet) with the notepad, and she took them both.

' _I'm mute._ ' The note read. _'I have to cast spells non-verbally. See._ '

McGonagall's eyes were wide as she looked between his note and the match.

"Very well." She set Lukas's things down on the table. "I will have to speak with the headmaster about this. Carry on as you are for now. Good work, Mr Black."

Lukas groaned low in his chest and banged his head on the table as she walked away, sending Gallus into hooting laughter. _Fuck_.

•─────⋅☾ ⋅ ☽⋅─────•

On Wednesday morning, Lukas received a letter delivered by bland but cute brown owl. The note was short and sweet, and if he tied it to a stick, it'd probably make a good white flag for his hopes and dreams surrendering to meddling teachers.

' _Dear Mr Black,_

_'Professor McGonagall will escort you to my office after your Transfiguration lesson today to discuss your disability. I look forwards to meeting you._

_'Yours sincerely,_

_'Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry'_

So that afternoon, Lukas wound up right at the tippity top floor of the castle side by side with McGonagall. Their trek ended in a bland stretch of corridor staked out by a hulking statue of a gargoyle set in a wall.

"Lemon drops," McGonagall announced brusquely. Lukas frowned at her, his lip drawing back from his teeth, but his eyebrows jumped up when the gargoyle, with a hideous grating, trundled aside to reveal a spiralling staircase.

"Step on," McGonagall said. "He's waiting for you."

Lukas would have been happy to leave him waiting until his deathbed, but he stepped through the stone arch and onto the step anyway. As soon as his foot left the corridor, another grumbling scrape echoed around him and the stairs rose like a great swirling escalator. In a couple of seconds, McGonagall was out of sight and Lukas was alone with the deafening grind of stone on stone.

The moving staircase was incredible and all, but it was also _slow._ After a minute of tapping his foot and grimacing at the sound, Lukas got sick of it and took off at a jog up the stairs, just quick enough to get his heart going without sweating.

Before he could knock on the small door at the top, an old man's voice rang out around him. "Come in, Mr Black."

The headmaster was nowhere in sight when Lukas first stepped through the door. Instead, a sweep of cabinets and tables opened before him, all full of delicate instruments made from gleaming silver. Bookshelves hemmed the room, funnelling the path between the spindly tables up to a short set of stairs that curled around behind a grand set of mahogany shelves. The pigeonholes in them each cradled its own scroll.

Lukas edged through the small room, his bag pulled tight to his back as he skirted the little tables dotted over the floor. The mechanisms on the tables kept drawing his eyes, his feet slowing to a snail's tap as they submitted to the fascination ticking in his mind. The glass-front cases that lined the walls held even more and each was a wonder to behold. It was a marvellous collection – each intricate, finely-crafted device must have cost a fortune, and a lot looked as if they had a use too.

Lukas stood at the foot of the stairs debating if this particular piece – a small globe that depicted a map Lukas didn't recognise in a mix of silver plate and mesh – would fit in his pocket when the headmaster called out again.

"Mr Black, while I respect and appreciate your curiosity immensely, we do have a meeting scheduled."

Lukas clicked his tongue against his teeth, and with one last lingering look at the globe, he climbed the stairs. The space at the top was wide and airy. Gleaming polished wood trickled away to grand floor-to-ceiling windows that looked over the lake and the forest far to the left. Lukas traipsed across the floor with his eyes devouring the beautifully bound books behind the old man and the huge array of portraits covering the rest of the walls. They all watched Lukas as he took his seat in a well-padded armchair, ruffling their clothes and sitting forward in their frames to squint at him.

Dumbledore smiled at Lukas across the table, the shape of it muffled by his long, silver beard. His eyes crinkled up in a happy scoop of wrinkles as he did. "You are free to continue to peruse my collection once our business is finished, Mr Black. I'm not one to curb a young student's interest, wherever it may lie."

Lukas gave a thin smile and nodded, but a strained warble drew his attention from the headmaster. The bulk of the desk had blocked the cage off on his way over here, but now, the gilded dome and the scrawny chick perched within were just a couple of metres away.

Like Lukas's attention _bothered_ it, the scruffy, pink-skinned thing cried again. Lukas grimaced, leaning away from it. God that sound was awful. Not that he could put his finger on _why_ ; perhaps it was a touch too high-pitched, a fraction out of tune, or maybe it was the slight sting it sent through his eardrums. Either way, nothing about the bald, wrinkled thing was endearing _at all_ _._

"He does look far better than that most of the time." Lukas turned back to Dumbledore, his eyebrows drawing together. Wasn't it a baby? Did it have a _bath_ yesterday? As if that would improve anything. Dumbledore continued apparently oblivious of Lukas's scepticism, rheumy old eyes stuck on the chick and a fond smile curving his wrinkled lips "Phoenixes are reborn from their ashes when they die, and Fawkes had his Burning Day only yesterday. In two weeks, he'll be his handsome old self again."

Surely phoenixes should be a little more aesthetically pleasing than that, recently dead or not. Wasn't that the whole point?

"Now, on to business." Dumbledore rested his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers. The way he peered at Lukas over the top of them was reminiscent of the sorting, but the gaze was softer now, a little twinkle behind it. If Lukas hadn't known better, he might have thought he'd been wrong about that _glare_. "Professor McGonagall has informed me that you are unable to speak, is this correct?"

Lukas nodded, pulling his feet up onto the chair to cross his legs.

"Ah…" Dumbledore tapped his fingers against his lips, considering. "In which case…" His hand dipped below the desk and when he raised it, he held a wand, pointed directly at Lukas.

The chair toppled over with a thunderous clatter, and that damn bird set off into a torrent of squawking again. Lukas skittered backward until he knocked against the wide banister, his own wand in his hand and his heart spasming up in his throat. All of the painted figures jumped up and started jabbering to each other. So many of them talked that the words all jumbled together but none of it was savoury.

 _Shit_. What now? What the fuck could he do against whatever Dumbledore wanted?

"My dear boy." The headmaster rose from his chair and raised his hands. If it had been a breath quicker, Lukas thought he would've broke and ran. His arm trembled, and even the baggy sleeves didn't hide it. The portraits quietened down at the sound of Dumbledore's voice, leaning forwards in their frames. One crotchety old man put a listening horn to his ear. "Whatever seems to be the problem?"

What? Some of the tension seeped out of Lukas's jaw. Was it not something bad? Lukas swallowed hard and pointed at the wand, now set on the table, and shook his head. Dumbledore frowned until Lukas repeated the action.

"Ah!" His hands fell to a genial spread "I was simply going to cast a spell that would allow you to project your thoughts in the form of writing – just to make the conversation easier for you, you understand?"

 _Like hell you are_. Lukas pocketed his wand and wrote a note. His hand was still fucking shaking. What kind of stupid reaction had that been anyway? Dumbledore didn't have any reason to do _anything_ to Lukas right now. He hadn't done anything suspicious, right? With tight lips, Lukas slapped the notepad on the table for Dumbledore to read and picked up his fallen chair.

' _I've coped like this for several years, and I am content to continue to do so. I'm sure you have a spell to project the contents of my notes into your brain – just to make the conversation easier for you._ '

The last of the tension vanished from the headmaster, and Dumbledore gave a light chuckle as he slid the notepad back. "I'm more than happy to read them myself, Mr Black. So you've had this disability for a long time?"

Lukas planted himself back in his chair and wrote a reply. ' _I don't call it a disability, but yes, for about six years now_.'

"I believe it was, if my memory serves correctly, Professor Snape who visited you during the summer, correct?" Lukas nodded. "Did he know about this?"

' _Professor Snape was content to let my guardian do the talking_.'

"And your guardian didn't inform the professor either?" Lukas shook his head. "Why is that?"

' _Because I don't like special treatment._ '

Dumbledore gave him an intensely patronising smile. Prick. "Our curriculum makes it difficult to hide a verbal impairment. However, that does beg the question, Mr Black – where _did_ you learn to perform non-verbal spells to such an impressive level?" The old man leant forward and levelled his gaze at Lukas, who ducked his head in a show of shy humility. _Oh_ , _you honour me with your flattery, Professor. I_ have _to hide my reddening cheeks._ The portraits started whispering to each other and Lukas noticed one – a thin, pompous man – peering at him with a special intensity. "You are a muggleborn student, are you not, Mr Black? You do realise that most witches and wizards don't even attempt non-verbal spells until their fifth- or sixth-year?"

Lukas kept his eyes low as he flashed the note with his reply. ' _I didn't know it was so special. I had to try something._ '

"But you must have had _some_ prior knowledge of non-verbal spells?"

Lukas bit his lip, eyes on the twisting of his pen between his fingers. Was the old man trying to dig something up? Did he wonder if his memory wipe hadn't worked as well as he would have liked? Maybe Lukas hadn't been as stupid thinking that as he'd thought. Lukas took his time over the note, with lots of shy glances up to Dumbledore while he made a show of writing quickly and scribbling over blank patches of paper.

' _Professor Snape took me to Diagon and I was so worried about having a problem I had to think of other ways to do magic. But the only magic I had seen was Professor Snape doing spells without speaking, so it was the first thing I thought to try. I didn't really know what else to do if it didn't work, so I kept practicing until it did as soon as I got here. I mean, people always tell me I'm very smart and analytical, so I suppose it really helped!'_

The headmaster kept his smile on while he read the note, but some of the feeling seemed to drain out of it. Dumbledore couldn't tell if genial, shy little Lukas lied through the note, even if he suspected it, and there wasn't _that_ much of a lie anyway.

Dumbledore handed Lukas's notebook back and perhaps with a little force, the smile filled up again, this time with beaming jollity. "Well if so, this is all _spectacular_ , Mr Black, a show of spectacular talent, but I'm pleased to tell you that you won't have to struggle behind your classmates for your time here." Lukas's eyebrow twitched _._ _Struggle behind?_ Was that so? "You see, here in the wizarding world we have spells and potions to cure all manner of muggle ills, and I'm sure our healers will have your disability fixed in no time."

Lukas had already finished his note by the time Dumbledore finished talking. ' _Your spells and potions cure physical trauma, not psychological, and I don't want anyone in my head_.'

A moment of floundering came across Dumbledore's face. "My dear boy…"

Lukas held up a finger and wrote. ' _I don't want talk about it. It's irrelevant_.'

The expression cemented into sagging lips, and Dumbledore spread his hands toward Lukas, long knotted fingers splayed. "Mr Black, perhaps this is something the school should know about. We may be able to help you with your troubles."

' _They're finished. It's only lingering issues – nothing the school should know about_.'

The old man narrowed his eyes. Lukas twitched as Fawkes cried again. Shit, that sound went through him. Gritting his teeth, Lukas pulled his notebook back from Dumbledore.

' _Is that everything?_ '

"Yes…" Dumbledore gave his head a slight shake and smiled. "Yes, of course. Of course. Just remember that any one of the teachers are willing to help you with any problems you might have, whether to do with your disability or something else entirely. Now, I'm sure you want to go see your friends, and dinner will be starting soon. So off you go, Mr Black. Have an excellent evening!"

Lukas gave Dumbledore a quick wave once he'd pushed the chair back under the desk, and as soon as his back was turned, he let all the groaning building in his chest show on his face.

Fuck _sake._ He had to write to Jack about that.

On his way out, he almost pocketed the globe, but something about the air around it brought him up short, echoed by the taste of ash and baking bread. There were probably jinxes all over it. Perhaps he'd take it in a few years; he'd inevitably be up here again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lucky's paranoid, but maybe he has good reason?
> 
> How's my Dumbledore guys? I'm not going to be writing a Dumbledore bashing fic, so I'd like to write Lucky believably sceptical of/at odds with him.


	10. Bats & Broomsticks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco Malfoy extends a hand, and Lukas faces is arch-nemesis: broomsticks.

Lukas stared out across the gentle slopes of the Hogwarts fields with dread a weight towing on his heart. The Gryffindors stamped across the verdant grass, huddled together like some beastly beetle, and the sounds of their joking and laughter carried to the Slytherins on the wind, lifting several sneers across aristocratic lips.

They’d be here soon, and when they were here, _it_ would start.

“Merlin, Lukas, you look _morose_. You look like someone’s _died._ ” 

Lukas pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth. With a little force, he pinned the glower on Draco Malfoy, who stood to his right looking downright friendly. Four days ago, he would have taken a spot someway down the rough line of Slytherins and laughed at the mudblood jokes his friends made without even trying to keep them under their breath. Three days ago, he’d arrived at breakfast early and sat down right beside Lukas and things had changed entirely.

Lukas had been reading a book covering the magical theory for second year charms. He hadn’t worked through all the first-year material yet, but he was ahead on magical theory and he was sick of practicing whistling charms. When Malfoy took the seat beside him, Lukas slapped the book closed and glanced up and down the Slytherin table. Three people sat along the whole length.

Malfoy’s voice was timid when he spoke, his blond head ducked as if it might make his presence less … well, _there_. “May I sit with you?”

Lukas shrugged. Malfoy’s face froze in a mask of uncertainty and resisting a grin, Lukas let him agonise for a moment before nodding. Malfoy let out a great sigh, colour flushing back into his pasty cheeks, and he shoved his plate back to make room for a thick modern tome. Scraps of parchment marked several pages at odd intervals. Lukas eyed it but clearly it was _something_ to do with why he was here, so it wasn’t worth writing a note to find out early.

“May I talk to you about something?” Malfoy made a dramatic show of whispering and cupping the shape of his mouth away from the rest of the hall, as if _anyone_ cared what he had to say. A smile twitching at his lips, Lukas waited a beat before nodding. “Well… You see…” Malfoy ducked his head, and he rubbed his finger against the cover of the tome. It gave a little squeak “I wrote to my father to ask about my so-called uncle, and he took _ages_ to get back to me and I _know_ he—”

Where his voice had lifted to petulance, he broke off abruptly with a nervous glance at Lukas. Really, this was _hilarious._ Looked like little Malfoy had clocked onto Lukas’s big, bad heritage.

“Sorry,” Malfoy said. “The point _is_ when he wrote back, he said that you were lying, which I had expected because it’s really _completely_ unbelievable, but he _also_ told me _never_ to ask him about that again and he was very insistent that he’d never had a brother, so naturally, I—well, looked into it myself. And I found this.”

Draco’s finger trailed over the scraps of parchment, until he reached one about halfway through. The book slapped open against the table, baring a double spread brick wall of teeny text, which honestly looked like the most boring thing Lukas had ever seen. No book worth reading jammed text in that tight together. A few pictures broke up the glacier of print, one portrait dominating beneath a header each. Lukas recognised the first name and face – Rodolphus Lestrange – but he recognised the second set far better. He woke up beside that face every morning.

Lukas pulled the book towards him. Jack’s page in this book – and Jack wouldn’t like that they’d headed it ‘Jaxus Malfoy’ at _all_ – blathered on about his place in the Malfoy family and his role as a Death Eater. A blurry picture of a masked figure in black robes sat in the very bottom corner beside a small diagram of the Malfoy family tree. The line descending from Abraxas Malfoy and Lilia Orrell clearly split in two – the second branch touched Jack’s name and the other led neatly to Lucius Malfoy, Draco’s father.

Malfoy tapped the large picture of Jack heading the page. “Is that the man you were talking about?”

Jack looked no more than seventeen in the picture, and he was dressed in a set of stiff formal robes that looked utterly bizarre on him. It couldn’t be anyone but Jack though, shifting around in discomfort and tugging at his sleeves. Lukas had never seen him look more unhappy … or perhaps not unhappy. Wizarding photos captured emotion far better than muggle, but it still hadn’t managed to capture a trace of anything but exhaustion in Jack’s dull, glazed eyes.

Lukas looked up at Malfoy and nodded once, sharply.

“Are you _sure?_ ”

Lukas flipped the page over and promptly burst out laughing so loud that he drew the attention of the entire sparse, early-breakfast crowd. Lukas clapped his hand to his mouth, stemming it to wheezy giggles, and tapped one of the new pictures.

God knew where the author had found it. Jack hated having photos taken of him, except it didn’t look like he had the awareness to mind this one, or even to know someone had taken it. Not that Lukas could really tell why the other subject of the photo hadn't objected.

Jack was _out._ No question about that. Slumped against a brick wall while the daylight lit him in dazzling splendour and weeds growing out of the paving slabs around him. An empty vodka bottle was nestled beside a particularly virulent dandelion, but the vacant grin pasted across his face was like nothing Lukas had seen on him before. Not drunk, not high, not anything, and especially not with the way the veins creeping up his throat had turned so dark they stood out like brand in the sepia image.

' _Jaxus Malfoy sighted with the notorious necromancer Erebus,'_ the caption read, and at first glance, the figure crouched beside Jack looked unerringly like himself. Older, though, but certainly not old enough to have been Lukas's _great-_ uncle. His face was smooth and crystal bright, hardly older than Jack, and it was easy to see. In the picture, his pale eyes fixed on the camera lens, sharp lines of his grin and a predatory cant to his head. His fingers drew along Jack's thigh and just before they reached the top, Erebus winked and blew a kiss to the camera.

Then his face changed in a blink. Like a wild horror, Erebus gnashed his teeth, lunging forward. A jerk went through the shot, and an explosion of black magic fractured it to stars.

Lukas flipped the page back and wrote a quick note to Malfoy. ‘ _That’s him alright. I trust this goes no further, or there’ll be consequences._ ’

Malfoy held Lukas's eyes for a long time after he read the note, something cool and intent behind them as they flickered over Lukas's face. Lukas held his gaze with a grin until Malfoy said, "You look a lot like your Great-Uncle."

' _I've heard we're very similar._ '

Malfoy nodded slowly and his eyes trailed back down to the picture of Jack. "He doesn't look very much like Father."

The corner of Lukas's lips twitched. Jack would be pleased to hear that. Now what about little Malfoy looking miffed? That's what the downturned tightness around his lips was, wasn't it? New family, but nothing to hook him yet, and it _would_ make Jack happy if Malfoy didn't hate him at first glance, at least. Lukas tapped his pen against the notepad until he found it.

' _You walk like him._ ' Malfoy's eyes widened as he read that bit. ' _I didn't know you were his nephew, but you walk just the same._ '

Like a cocky asshole was the part Lukas didn't add, but Malfoy looked pleased enough with it.

“Okay…” Malfoy’s eyes trailed down to the family tree, and any brightening vanished into deep. Lucius’s marriage to Narcissa Black was marked, but there was an empty space where Draco would sit now. “Why would Father lie to me about that?”

‘ _Jack said they hated each other. I think your father may have disowned him entirely._ ’

Lucius couldn’t disown Jack in actuality – the Lord had the right to disown anyone but a parent or a sibling, due to some sort of archaic laws – so Jack was still a Malfoy, though disowned in all but the most official manner.

“Hm… I _still_ don’t see why he shouldn’t tell _me._ I mean what if my…” Draco’s fingers twitched on the edge of the page, “my _uncle_ tried to contact me? He’s more likely to do _that_ than talk to my father if you’re in my year and he knows you.”

‘ _Did you tell your father I knew him?_ ’

“Well _yes_. How else would I bring it up?” Draco sat up, the trace of unease vanishing from his face as he put on a pompous voice that sounded like no more than a theatrical version of his own. “’Oh, Father, I’d just wondered if I had an uncle I’d never known about. No, no reason for asking, it just came to me in a dream, you see.’ _Merlin,_ he’d have me sent straight to Healer Montague.”

Lukas snickered despite himself, and no matter the grimace that stirred behind it. Not ideal, but Lucius probably wouldn’t want anything about Jack getting dug up again. No problems then. Hopefully.

“Anyway,” Malfoy said, slapping the book closed, “I’d like to say that I do believe you then, even if it _does_ sound ridiculous, and I’m very sorry for treating you like a mudblood. Can we start afresh?”

Malfoy held out his hand, a small, expectant smile on his lips. Lukas considered turning back to his book or laughing in the boy’s face, but it _was_ Jack’s nephew. _Preconceptions, Lucky. Less preconceptions._ Did it count as preconceptions if Malfoy had been insulting him all year? Regardless, he _was_ Jack’s nephew, and he did seem amusing. Maybe Lukas could get some more fun out of him.

Yes… Lukas pasted on a pleasant smile and shook Malfoy’s hand. The thin callouses on his own scraped across the boy’s fresh, untouched skin.

Since then, the kid hadn’t left his bloody side. Lukas really couldn't work out what he had that everyone else in the year didn't – Urquhart and Rowle and Yaxley were rich as shit, Gallus was so charming he almost had Lukas going googly eyes, and Draco and Higgs bounced off each other. No matter that though, Draco stuck to Lukas like glue.

It was maybe Jack, but more probably Erebus and the Black lineage. Which meant Lukas had been pinned for _political favour,_ and he didn't like that one bit. At least Draco was alright anyway.

Back on Hogwart’s sprawling fields, the Gryffindors had arrived on the flat, neatly trimmed expanse. They lined up opposite the Slytherins under Madam Hooch’s instruction and Lukas ended up stood across from a boy he vaguely recalled as McLaggen, some cocky little prick who wouldn’t shut up. And Jack’s talk on preconceptions could fuck itself, because McLaggen had already made one joke about Lukas’s muteness and he’d only been standing there five fucking minutes.

“Well,” Hooch snapped to them, “what’re you waiting for? Everyone stand beside your broomsticks.”

Lukas had already claimed the healthiest broom – only _slightly_ bent and most of its bristles were in place – and he positioned himself to its left. His aura already flexed around him, and it’d take all his control to give himself a semblance of confidence on this thing.

Confidence was key. Already, he could feel everyone’s eyes but Draco and Seb’s pricking him, and they’d have a field day if little mute, mudblood Lukas fell off his fucking broom.

Madam Hooch stood at the head of the two lines and surveyed the little first-years with yellow, hawk-like eyes. “Stick out your right hand over your broom,” she said, “and say ‘up!’”

As a little hivemind beast, the first-years stuck out their hands and shouted, “UP!” Only Seb glanced at Lukas to see how he coped, but of course, Lukas had pulled the broom into his hand by a tendril of magic the moment Hooch spoke. The vine bound the bucking length of the stick, but the jolts against his magic still knocked through his wrist in some strange, metaphysical sense. _Damn sentient magical objects._ It could probably _feel_ fear.

If Lukas hadn’t been able to pull his broom up with wandless, he wouldn’t have been alone. Most of the class still had a broom resting by their feet. Draco and Seb had both managed it, and so had McLaggen across the field, and the prat’s chest puffed up when he looked up and down the line at the Slytherin failures.

Proud Nikita Delaney and surly Felix Yaxley still glowered at their brooms on the ground. Emilio Gallus burst into gales of laughter when on his second try, only the front of his broom jumped and smacked him straight in the face, a sound quickly hushed by Ainsley Urquhart, who had his broom idle and limp in his hand from the first try.

The other Gryffindors had varying levels of success, but McLaggen didn’t seem quite so interested in shortcomings from his own house, although he did spare a moment to rib Marcus Vane when the short boy resigned himself to plucking his broom off the ground by hand.

Madam Hooch told them all to mount their brooms then walked up and down the lines with critical eyes, correcting each of her student’s grips and stances.

“Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard,” she said. “Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle — three—two—” McLaggen kicked out at Andrew Kirke, and his chortles as the other boy stumbled almost drowned out the countdown “—One!” Madam Hooch blew on the whistle and the class jumped _up_.

At this point, the broom jerking and kicking between Lukas’s legs sucked up every drizzle of his attention with its greedy pleading for the sky. Swathes of his aura bundled around himself and the broom and he clung on with white-knuckled claws, his mind spiralling upside down and backwards and twisting itself in knots that pulsed across his tunnelled vision.

_Oh god, oh god, oh god, where’s the fucking ground, I’m gonna fucking fall, how high am I, oh my—_

The mental stream cut short as his feet brushed the ground again, and with his conscious kicking back in, Lukas plunged his aura into the earth and anchored himself there. Spurts of soil went in the air, but everyone else was too busy shrieking and whooping about their feet being off the ground to notice.

 _Oh my god._ A loud groan burst from Lukas’s lips at the blessed kiss of the ground against the soles of his feet, and in a spasm not quite by his will, his fingers dropped the godforsaken piece of wood to thump against the grass. His heart hammered way, _way_ too fast to be healthy.

“You, boy!” Lukas jumped when Madam Hooch shouted from the far end of the line, a little of his soul probably leaving his body in a puff of blue smoke. Her hawk-eyes pierced him, hands on her hips. “Pick your broom back up. It isn’t the end of the lesson yet.”

Draco and Seb alighted either side of him, watching him carefully. Lukas scowled. The whole class was staring at him now, and McLaggen’s face held a fascinated sort of intrigue.

Slowly, he lifted his finger, a grin crawling onto his lips. “Boys—Hey, boys! Look at Black!” His little group of cronies broke out of their conversations to follow his jabbing finger, all apart from Hector Summerby, a boy with sparkling blue eyes and as pretty as his surname, who was too absorbed in complimenting Demelza Robbins’s broomwork to pay attention.

It was a scant comfort, all things considered. A sour taste splayed across Lukas’s tongue as McLaggen’s friends burst into laughter. McLaggen rubbed his knuckles beneath his eye and pouted. “Did it scare you, Black? I know it must be strange finding a broom with more personality than you have, but I promise it’s more scared of the slimy Slytherin riding it than you are of being about a foot off the ground!”

Seriously, it didn’t even make _sense,_ but it didn’t change the heat that grew beneath Lukas’s collar as the laughter trickled through the rest of the Gryffindors and infected even a few of the other Slytherins with insidious giggles. Lukas’s heart still beat too fast, and his head felt too light. Too light and too heavy all at once, a knot of twisting skull and brain that cartwheeled off across the sweet green hills.

It was stupid. If he could just speak then he’d be able to spit something back at McLaggen that’d make the insult just as idiotic as it sounded to Lukas, but he _couldn’t_. A single fucking blessing that Madam Hooch blew her whistle and cut them all off before the sneer growing on Draco's face could turn into a tirade. Last thing he fucking needed was someone shouting at McLaggen for him – it’d only fuel the little prick.

Once the silence settled, Seb sidled up closer to him. “Are you alright, Luke?” he asked in a low voice. “You’ve gone white.”

Lukas shook his head, then realised that was probably the wrong action and gave Seb and a thumbs up. _It’s okay, but I might have a panic attack if she makes us do that again._

“Right then,” Madam Hooch hollered. “Let’s do that again.” _God help me._ “This time I want you to hover where you are for a minute before coming back to the ground. On the whistle again. Three—two—one…”

The whistle shrilled and a great, twisting cramp passed through Lukas’s chest. _I can’t_. He tried to bend his legs and jump, but his joints were frozen straight, legs little more use than wooden sticks. His aura flailed uselessly in the air around him, bewildered in its semi-sentient way by the conflicting intentions.

In his tunnelled vision, Lukas watched as McLaggen’s feet drift up from the floor, the gap of air widening to a gaping maw. When they were level with his eyes, dangling into nothing, Lukas prised open his rigid fingers and let the broom drop.

Yep. Good choice _._

He pulled out his notebook and started writing as soon as Madam Hooch strode towards him. He tore the page off and handed it to her before she could gather up any words. ‘ _I’m afraid I don’t think this class is for me. Thank you for your time, but I’ll return to the castle now._ ’

He made sure he was halfway across the pitch before she finished reading it, chased by the raucous laughter of the Gryffindor boys.

The first thing Draco and Seb did when they sat down beside him in the Great Hall for dinner was burst into gales of laughter.

“Merlin, Lukas,” Draco crowed as he pulled a platter full of sandwiches toward him, “I can’t believe you did that! Hooch looked as if she were going to lay an egg!”

Seb already had a dollop of the starchy stew he swore by halfway inside his mouth, so he nodded empathetically around it.

“Seb couldn’t _believe_ we’ve finally found something you’re not good at.”

Seb swallowed his stew. “And Draco hexed McLaggen on the way back up to the castle.” His arch tone toed the line between disappointment and amusement. “It was the bat-bogey hex, but McLaggen thought Ainsley had done it—”

“You know,” Draco cut in, “because Ainsley convinced Snape that it’d been McLaggen who’d snuck a glob of Myrtleweed into his potion the other day, and he got detention for it—”

“And you’re damnably lucky he did!” Lukas ducked Seb’s flailing spoon, a grin broad across his face as he followed the exchange. “I don’t know if you saw, but Sprout was lurking over by the greenhouses – she’ll have put the lot of them in detention again for fighting.”

Lukas wrote a quick note out while Draco ground through his mouthful of sandwich. ‘ _Sounds like I caused some trouble_.’ The two boys took one look at it and laughed.

“Don’t act like it bothers you,” Seb said, waggling his spoon at Lukas, and when Lukas gave a nonchalant shrug, Seb groaned and dug back into his stew.

Draco dug his elbow into Lukas’s side, and once he’d taken a sip of pumpkin juice, he said, “You should’ve _seen_ it, Luke. I’ve never cast such a good bat-bogey _._ There must have been six of them attacking McLaggen at once, and when me and Seb legged it, they were all screaming at each other. Just _beautiful._ ”

‘ _Do you want to sneak into the hospital wing and cast it on him again?_ ’

Big silver sickles could have replaced Draco’s eyes as he ogled at the note, sandwich falling away from his mouth, and he exclaimed, “Absolutely!” exactly the same time as Seb groaned, his spoon clashing against the bowl, and said, " _Veles,_ no!”

They went in the end, and even though Seb grumbled the whole way, he ended up casting the spell from the doorway while Draco and Lukas distracted Madam Pomfrey with some oozing boils Lukas had hexed onto Draco’s arm.

Eight bats flew out of McLaggen’s nose, and his cries of terror followed the three of them as they ran laughing down the hallway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nice lil' fun settling in chapter - Lucky's gonna be a right little shit if anyone causes him trouble. How's my cast for Lucky's yearmates coming through so far? Any favourites (in their very, very brief screentime)? My little spreadsheet of side character personality traits is keeping me honest, but god knows if honest is good enough yikes
> 
> next chapter, we've got *drum roll* plot! i mean it's all plot, but this is _important_ plot.


End file.
